The Wizard of Ahz
by Rune-of-Iormangand
Summary: A crazy Oz parody. Kitty’s mislaid by an unlikely storm, Bartimaeus' brain gets him in straw, and Nathaniel’s not yet rid of all ruth. Romance! Suspense! Humour! Um, 1 out of 3 is fine. Sock puppets! Too many allusions! Demons! Did I mention sock puppets?
1. The Unseasonable, Unreasonably and Unl

Hello. I can not think of a more inspired opening line, I am near hyperventilating from the excitement/mortification of publishing my first fanfiction that has nothing to do with English homework.

Here we go then. With a series of events that bear a striking resemblance to the work of Frank Baum, author of 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' and the movie based on this, Kitty is taken to a far off land of bright colours and weird natives. At least, I think they're native.

So I hereby disclaim that I own the Bartimaeus Trilogy, by Jonathon Stroud, 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by Frank Baum, the movie done by someone else, but I own the concept of the lost cow and the sock puppets. Not actual sock puppets. Just the idea --Shifty eyes--

* * *

--The Unseasonable, Unreasonably and Unlikely Tornado--

Minding Mr Pennyfeather's shop was not all that bad. Sure, the hours were tedious, since no-one ever came except for their regular customers or the occasional rats, but it gave Kitty some time to be by herself. Alone. For a very long time.

"Very quiet today, isn't it, Mr Buttons?" one purple sock with an orange button and blue button for eyes asked another sock puppet.

"Shut up and go to hell, Mr Tipples," replied a foul green sock with patches of fluff for eyes.

Yes, Kitty was bored. But rather than just sit back and let the madness sink in, she entertained herself with neurotic imaginary people and silly voices. It stunted the process. Well, it kept her occupied. OK, at the very least, it used a pair of socks.

Mr Tipples was made from one of her mother's that had somehow ended up in her luggage before moving here. Mr Buttons she wasn't so sure about. It was actually one of Nick's oldest and most disgusting socks, but luckily she didn't know about it. It would explain its temperament though . . .

"You're stupid and you smell," he said, to fill up space.

Most of the team was out attending to their ever so small lives outside of the Resistance. Stanley was working a shift delivering newspapers. Fred was doing a part-time job several suburbs from there. Nick was avoiding doing anything that could be interpreted as work. And Mr Pennyfeather was sorting out loans at the bank. Which left Kitty all alone, as was mentioned beforehand.

"Kind of dull, this job," Mr Tipples voiced Kitty's thoughts.

"Suck it up and choke," Mr Buttons said for no good-mental health reason.

While it was not exactly cheap, the store was not really all that sturdy. The flat above had a leak along one wall, and in here there was a hole that let in every chill breeze to bite at any exposed flesh. Sometimes in very inventive ways.

"Gee, it's suddenly become very windy," Mr Tipples commented.

"You're windy," Mr Buttons shot back.

Kitty put down the puppets for a moment, and looked out the window just above the hole in the wall not planned in design. Indeed. It did seem very windy. She noted this by the waving trees, and shaking houses.

"It's not supposed to storm this time of year," mused Mr Tipple.

"I hate you and your storms," snapped Mr Buttons.

With a ripping sound, the canvas from the next-door store became loose, and blew onto the front of the store. It blocked Kitty's view, so she walked around the counter, still with the sock puppets.

"Hey, is that a tornado?" Mr Tipples asked.

"You're a tornado," replied Mr Buttons, as the canvas flipped and blew further around the street.

Kitty gasped. The streets of London were now abandoned of any human and rodent life. Cars were flipped on their sides, streetlamps groaned from being shoved this way and that, and a cow that had become lost mooed in pitiful confusion.

"Oh. So it _is_ a tornado," Mr Tipples noted.

"You're a— I mean, OH MY FREAKING GOD!" Mr Buttons screamed. "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

A whirling funnel of doom whirled its, er, funnel self through the street, picking up cars, streetlamps, and the poor misplaced cow. Kitty had to note, London was not the place for tornadoes.

"Yeah. They're usually formed by low pressure systems with high winds," said Mr Tipples knowledgably.

"No, you're usually formed by low pressure systems with high winds!" Mr Buttons shot back.

"Will you shut up!" Kitty snapped, peeking out the door for a moment. She said a bad word, because it appeared that the tornado was coming this way.

"Gee, it looks like that tornado is coming this way," Mr Tipples commented.

"Shut up!" Kitty cried, shut the door, and leapt behind the counter. She didn't have much knowledge about how to deal with tornadoes, because as far as she knew, one never happened England.

So she wasn't entirely surprised when it seemed the tornado had taken a liking to the art supplies store, and lifted it from its supports (leaving the basement behind), and carried far, far away from the little shop in Southwark.

* * *

There you have it. Sorry about the lack of length, but it is hard to draw comparisons in the first chapter.

Now, due to me having to go to my grandparents tomorrow morning, whose computer is currently being taken care of by my dad due to ingesting too many viruses, I will have to submit the next chapter, which is longer, soon. Depending if I can master the submitting system and avoid having it as another story.

Please read and review, and do so with kindness or at the very least bemusement. I am young and breakable.


	2. A Council wit DISCLAIMER DEMONS! DISCLA

Opening line, what opening line?

Ahem. Sorry to have cut out the anticipation of writing, but I evidently have mastered the skill of transmitting chapters. I won't be around to see it get shot to the ground or praised to the heavens, since I'll be playing at a Christmas concert for my grandma.

Anyway, this chapter is longer than before, and involves some characters not found in book or movie.

Disclaimer: I own neither 'the Bartimaeus Trilogy', 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' or its movie, a pamphlet on tornado safety (we don't get them here. Darn it), 'Life Strategies for Teens', (oops, I might own a copy but nothing more), the laws of physics, Japanese scripture, Microsoft (please don't hurt me), Paint, Megatokyo, however I sadly do own the Disclaimer Demons, who are currently locked in the boot of a car careening down a rocky mountain—

--Disclaimer Demons pop out of the fabric of space--

Female: YOU ARE USING A CLICHÉ; THEREFORE WE MUST KILL YOU!

Male: PLEASE SWALLOW THIS BRIGHTLY COLOURED CLEANING LIQUID!

Um, sorry, I forgot about their omnipresence . . .

Male: QUICKLY! WE MUST OBSESSIVELY RID ALL COPYRIGHTED REFERENCES!

Female: AND THEN WE MUST—

--Mallet wallops from thin air--

Sorry. Mallets are very cliché, but it's irony.

Read on, read on, don't have me stop you.

* * *

A Council wit--- DISCLAIMER DEMONS! DISCLAIMER DEMONS!

Up, and up went Mr Pennyfeather's shop. Up, and up, and— oh, then it went down a little bit, then up, and up, and to the left a little bit, then it almost looked like it was going to tip over, and— oh, it's going down, it's going down, faster, faster, oh my lord, this is going to be messy. I hope we can avoid a lawsuit . . .

Whoops, sorry, my mistake. I was looking at it upside down. OK, it's caught in a house-lifting updraft, which is lifting the, er, house, up in its, er, draft. Now it's more or less stable, bar being somewhere in the stratosphere.

Kitty lurched to her feet and carefully crossed the room to the window above the inventive hole. This stood as testimony to her lack of experience with such weather, because it was obviously unsafe to stand near windows during a tornado because you'd fall out.

--Pamphlet on tornado safety is flung with the intent of a charka--

Hang on a moment --leafs through pamphlet-- Oh, right. No, the pressure would just make the window shatter and send shards of glass into your face. Excuse me, I must go and find some antiseptic liquid.

Back to the un-shattered window. Kitty looked out, and saw a great deal of strange things pass by, obviously also caught up by the tornado. They were however lucky enough to have ignored the obvious fact their lives were doomed, so were carrying about their duties as natural.

A policeman was standing in what he thought was the middle of an intersection, puffing great big squeals from the whistle he wore around his neck. Although he couldn't see or hear anything, he thought this was normal peak hour traffic. However, this being a Sunday in the middle of the day, one must wonder how much concentration he can muster after getting kicked to the head a couple of times with steel-capped boots. Normal hazing, you know.

Next came an old man asleep on a deckchair. Since he was asleep on a deckchair, there is little to mention, except that he is asleep on a deckchair. Asleep on a deckchair, there was nothing to mention. I can write a lot about nothing at all, you know. Have you noticed? Pretty cool, isn't it?

--Amidst a chorus of disapproving 'no's, a self help book detailing Life Strategies of Teens, modelled on the author's father's book, Life Strategies is flung with murderous intent at the author--

Hey, you either get it, or you don't!

Then there was a magician behind a desk. This was probably even more boring than that guy asleep on the deckchair. Despite all the noise and movement, he still focuses on his paperwork, which is blown in every which direction. In fact, this all made him feel really good. He thought all the movement and noise was people fussing over and relying on him. The poor guy had low confidence. No, it's not Nathaniel. There are people with inferiority complexes other than him.

As Kitty was about to turn away, feeling quite ill (she didn't use a lot of public transport, since in London, it really isn't all that practical. For her, at least), the next sight was pretty surprising. A man with billowing black cloak, broad brimmed hat, and enormous black boots seemed be stalking something close by. Then the image flickered, and he suddenly transformed!

. . . Alright, there wasn't much of him to transform. But he hat grew a little pointer, and his boots suddenly flash bright red and a broomstick popped out of nowhere. And as this happened, he gave a malicious . . .

Alright, he didn't laugh. Come on, this guy is like the least dramatic guy in the series! But by taking some poetic license, let's say he laughed long and evilly, and great pinwheels of vicious magic pin-wheeled around—

--'Ptolemy's Gate' comes speeding through, smacking into the back of the author's head--

Yee-ow! That hurt! Don't you know how big that thing is? I would, if I had a copy, but it's thirty dollars and my shelf is full . . .

--Sharp bookmark follows, managing to skim so close by author's ear it shaves off some hair and boomerangs back to lodge a place in the book--

Alright, alright. Geez. Let me see . . .

Yes, in here he is immune to magic, so he couldn't be a witch/warlock. But this is a parody, so I can do what I damn well please, OK?

Anyway, at this point, the house starts to drop very suddenly. If normal laws of physics were adhered to, she'd be plastered against the ceiling now. But they don't, so she isn't.

"This disobeys the laws of physics!" Mr Tipples yells as they descend.

"You disobey the laws of physics!" Mr Buttons shouts back, telling the truth, as it happens. But that wasn't intended.

Whumph. Although obviously not the exact sound, but it was close enough in standard English. A situation like this really needs some Japanese kana to get it good enough, but my computer doesn't support Japanese figures due to some reason, possibly I'd have to find the Microsoft Office Disk and—

--Gigantic phonebook flies from opening and clobbers author--

Alright, alright, I'll get back on track.

OK. The house has landed, right? Kitty stumbles to the door, still wearing the sock puppets, and walks out, noting that the door and the rest of the house is still intact from being picked up by a violent tornado and dropped several thousand miles/kilometres.

The door opens (like undamaged doors do) onto a world that jarred Kitty's former view of it. It was incredibly bright, with every colour as if somebody had cranked up the Luminosity and Hue rating in Paint. The greens were brilliant, the blues were dazzling, the reds were vivid, my thesaurus ran out of words, and the yellows were enough to make her brain hemorrhage.

"Dear god, MY EYES!" screamed Mr Buttons.

Kitty looked around the obnoxiously bright village for as long as she could take. It was as far from London as possible.

"I don't think—" she began to say, but was interrupted by something unscripted.

"HALT!" screamed a couple of people, dressed in business clothes, carrying briefcases, wearing unnecessary glasses and half Kitty's size, despite looking about thirty five, which would make it risky for the woman to try and conceive.

"SHUT UP!" shouted the woman.

"Who are you?" asked Kitty. As if artificial candy red wasn't enough, now she was getting shouted at by a midget.

"WE ARE THE DISCLAIMER DEMONS!" roared the male, which seemed to be the only way they could talk. "AND IT IS OUR DUTY TO BOTHER ANY THAT DARE USE ALLUSIONS IN THEIR OWN WORK!"

"This is a parody," said Mr Tipples. "It's supposed to have allusions."

"You're allusions," shot back Mr Buttons.

"No," said Mr Tipples, unbothered. "An allusion is a passing reference to something else. As I am an OC, original character, I can't be an allusion to anything."

"Eat spools and die!" Mr Buttons shouted back.

"YOU MUST NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE YOU WERE ABOUT TO SAY!" shouted the woman, waving her briefcase threateningly.

"What sentence?" asked Kitty, every mobile inch of her face showing her rising annoyance.

"THAT 'I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS ANY MORE, TOTO' THING!" shouted the male.

"You just said it," pointed out Mr Tipples, ahem, Kitty.

"YES YOU DID!" screamed the female.

"NOOO! I HAVE SINNED!" bawled the male. "NOW I MUST KILL MYSELF!" He pulled out a sacrificial short sword from his briefcase, and was about to plunge it into his chest . . .

"NOOO! THAT'S AN ALLUSION TO A WEBCOMIC!" screeched the woman.

"NOW WHAT MUST I DO?" howled the male, quickly pulling out the sword.

"LET'S JUST KILL THE GIRL THAT SAW ALL OF THIS, SO IT WON'T MATTER!" suggested the female.

"YES!" agreed the male, pulling out a very nasty letter opener.

"No, I don't think so."

A pink bubble suddenly bulleted into the scene, blowing over kitty and the crazy midgets, and coming to a halt short enough to give anyone in two metres' radius whiplash. It suddenly (again) disappeared, revealing an old, kind looking woman with short white hair and perhaps a little more fat around her middle than was expected for the Witch of the— oops, getting ahead of myself.

If there had been any readers of Jonathon Stroud's acclaimed 'Bartimaeus Trilogy', they would have recognized the short-lived character of Martha Underwood. Except now she had wings and wore pink, but everyone expected a nice character to be made out of her, right?

"They wouldn't let me be the Witch of the West," she sighed, but in acceptance. "At least I don't get killed now."

"OH NO! IT'S AN OBSCURE CHARACTER!" screamed the 'demons' in horror. "RUN AWAY!"

They took off in a cloud of convenient dust.

"There you go, dear. You can say it now."

Kitty blinked at all that happened, then sighed.

"I don't think we're in London any more, Mr Tipples and Mr Buttons," she sighed.

"I think I like the movie line better myself," commented Mr Tipples.

"I hate you and your movie lines," snapped back Mr Buttons.

* * *

Thank you, and good night. Or day. Or morning. Depends on your location both physical and mental.

Read and review, please!


	3. The Council of— oh, never mind

I did have an opening line, but my cat ate it.

Yeah, so some people _did_ notice me. I'm so proud --sniff-- OK, it's not a movie deal, but it'll do for now. I got me some reviews too! Yay! And I can answer them! Mixed emotions!

the Thirteenth Councilor: Thanks very much! I do know the pain of a story that breaks away from your grip, jumps the fence, rampages around the street, and gives you incredible embarrassment so you can't walk past your English teacher with a straight face.

'Ptolemy's Gate'! I could drop subtle hints to my parents to buy it, but even if they did so, I have no space in my bookshelf for it. As library monitor, I was able to demand the library to get it and put myself first to get it. However, that meant that several irate seniors were bothering me to finish it in a hurry. Did you _see_ that size? Lucky for them I can read at great speed and have a lot of free time. Well, perhaps not, but I made free time for it, damn it.

Yes, Christmas concert in November. For seniors. It's nice to entertain the old folks and have them compliment me on my choice of instrument. Want to know what it is? Recorder. I've had five exams, no less, and I will fight for its inclusion in a class of decent instruments, OK? I've got a treble, and I know how to use it! –Brandishes two-foot woodwind instrument about—

anonymous: I grieve over your inner bleeding. I shall write with zest.

Somebody dubbed :-) (Which is really hard to write with AutoCorrect making it a Wingding thing): Thanks very much. It is my first fanfic that didn't have something to do with an assignment. Not my first written work --smiles innocently--

Thanks a lot guys.

Disclaimer: I own none of the following because I am cheap and they won't fit in my bag: The 'Bartimaeus Trilogy', 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum or its movie, 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll, 'The Adventures of Amelia Jane' by Enid Blyton (which I did like), 'Little Red Riding Hood' arranged first by the Grimm Brothers then by concerned parents, 'Streets of London' by Ralph McTell, Trafalgar Square, which is somewhere in London, Buckingham Castle, which is also somewhere in London, The Thames, which is in London, BBC, which is the British Broadcasting Corporation (although I could never guess what them letters stand for), Monty Python (whoo! Genius!), a geology dictionary (it's mum's), 'Crawling' by Linkin Park, any Grecian plays by Greek playwrights and possible a few Roman ones, Women's Liberation by the good (and bad) women of the world, Anne McCaffrey books (they're mum's too), Superman or his quotes, 'Where's Wally?' and his quotes (the 'Justice' line could come from anywhere), restaurant prices in German, the 'Myth' series by Robert Asprin (which is like the 'Bartimaeus Trilogy' with the Nathaniel equivalent having first-person narration and being mentored by the Bartimaeus equivalent without all them fancy talk in a medieval time-frame), Roget's International Thesaurus, a nondescript school dictionary, the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, Odin or any other member of Norse mythology, Microsoft Word, and computer Hearts. Thank you.

* * *

The Council of— oh, never mind.

"So, anyway," said the short-lived minor character of Martha Underwood. "Are you—" she gazed threateningly in the direction of where the Disclaimer Demons had been sent scurrying about a chapter ago, "Are you a good magician, or a bad magician? And are those Magicians too?" she pointed to the sock puppets.

"What?" snapped Kitty, understandably annoyed with this all. A sudden unreasonable tornado, an unfamiliar village constructed by bad taste incarnate, and some unscripted demons, and now somebody was asking her if she was the one thing she despised most in the world?

"Why do you want to know?" she snarled rudely. "And for that matter, why am I here? What _is_ this place? And they're sock puppets, you, you, wedding cake doll!"

The wedding cake— oh, I'm not even going to entertain it. Mrs Underwood smiled benevolently, despite that Kitty looked about ready to launch some very un-magical unfriendly hand signs.

"Well, dear, naturally I must ask whether you are a good magician or a bad magician if you do—" she gestured to what looked like a poorly created life-sized rag-doll "—go around dropping houses on people."

Kitty stared at the figure beneath the house. "That looks like a poorly created life-sized rag-doll," she said.

"Mmm, it does, doesn't it?" agreed Mrs Underwood.

"And that can't be blood. That's tomato sauce," said Kitty, in her conviction safe from realizing she just committed manslaughter.

"I suppose," mused Mrs Underwood. "However there are subtle differences. Tomato sauce is, for one, bright red. Another thing, tomato sauce is thicker. One more thing, tomato sauce comes from tomatoes, and not the broken veins of men."

Kitty took a second look at the house support, er, man, and her certainty started to fade.

"But I find that it is too salty and a little tasteless, so mustard or a bit of relish is a lot— oh, sorry dear, I lost my train of thought," Mrs Underwood apologized, finally coming down. "Anyway, are you a good magician or a bad—" she was interrupted, but thankfully not by the Disclaimer Demons.

"Oh damn, oh damn," Kitty cursed in panic. "The house fell on him!" (Sharp kid, ain't she?) "What will I do?" That last phrase was perhaps OOC for her, but it being a parody of Dorothy's line, please excuse it.

"Dorothy was a wimp!" Kitty cried.

Look, I can't help it. It came from the era where the 'common girl' was a popular character, based on simple innocence and curiosity. Like 'Alice in Wonderland', or --searches through bookshelf-- 'The Adventures of Amelia Jane', or 'Little Red Riding Hood'—

"Excuse me," Mrs Underwood interjects politely. "Amelia Jane was a mischievous brat of a doll, and Little Red Riding Hood was written by the Grimm Brothers on hearsay several centuries ago. They do not fit."

Well sorry! I can't help my discriminating taste!

"Anyway, are you a good magician or a bad magician?" Mrs Underwood repeated patiently.

Kitty should have been born with whiskers and a tail. Both would be on edge at this time. "I am _not_ a magician at all! My name is Kitty, and I've got to get back to London right now! Nick is probably going to blow up a city block if I don't stop him!"

"London?" Mrs Underwood exclaimed.

"Yes? Do you know how to get back there?" Kitty asked urgently, clasping the faces of Mr Tipple and Mr Buttons together.

"London? Lon . . . Don . . . Lee . . . Dee . . ." Mrs Underwood sounded out the name. "Mmm . . . Nope. Never heard of it."

Kitty nearly fell over. "What? Come on, London! Bonny London Town! Magical capital of the world!" she practically spat out the last sentence in distaste.

"Oh, London!" Mrs Underwood exclaimed again. "As in, 'Streets of London', 'Trafalgar Square'? Buckingham Castle? The Thames? BBC? Monty Python?"

"Yes!" said Kitty enthusiastically.

"Nope! Never heard of it!" waved Mrs Underwood. "Anyway, back to the original plot! There is nothing to be done!"

"Then just let me—" Kitty was cut off by the more on-task Mrs Underwood again.

"Who was that guy? Well, she was the Wicked Witch of the— oops, sorry. Can I do that again?" Mrs Underwood signalled to someone out of sight. From there, a small stack of stapled paper was tossed, which she caught in one hand, while fishing out a pair of glasses with another.

"Right . . . Top line is original, right?" she called to offstage. Some confirmation came, so she flicked through.

"OK, I think I've got it. Thanks guys," she tossed the book back, and returned the glasses.

"I don't think this was very well rehearsed," Mr Tipples said.

"No, _you're_ well rehearsed," Mr Buttons snapped back, hurt that he had been ignored so far.

"_He_ was the _Malicious Magician_ of the East," Mrs Underwood explained. "She— whoops— He has held all Munchkins in bondage for many years, making them slave for him all day and night. So, as one would expect, they're pretty happy to be set free by your somewhat questionable steering."

"Are you a Munchkin?" asked Kitty, loathing to sound ignorant, but being in an offensively bright world she had never seen before, you could cut her a little slack.

"No," said Mrs Underwood patiently. "I am their friend, although I live in the land of the north. I was here because a won a free breakfast in one of the inns, but then I noticed this house landing, and those Disclaimer Demon things."

"What are they?"

"Since they're not part of the movie nor book script, I can't comment. By the way, I am the Witch —ahem— Magician of the North."

"Oh, gracious!" cried Dorothy, ahem, Kitty. "Are you a real witch?"

"Magician," corrected Mrs Underwood. "In this reality, yes. But I am a Merciful Magician— oh, don't you love alliteration? — And the people love me." Kitty thought that 'magician' with any positive word in front of it was a contradiction in terms, but held her tongue. "There are only four Magicians in the land of Ahz and two of them, those that live in the North and South, are Merciful Magicians. I ought to know. I'm one. The others that live in the West and East are, indeed Malicious Magicians, but since one has a house on his head, there is only one left. I am not as powerful as the Malicious Magician who ruled here, until you flattened him, or I would've flattened him. Really."

"In London all magicians were evil, cruel, selfish, pitiless, stuck-up, stupid, ugly and smelled bad," said Kitty. There was an explosion of giggles around her.

"What was that?" demanded Kitty.

"Munchkins," shrugged Mrs Underwood.

"What are Munchkins?" asked Mr Tipple.

"What the hell are you talking about, you senile old Barbie doll?" snarled Mr Buttons.

The over-dressed senile old Barbie doll --disapproving glare from Mrs Underwood--answered kindly. "They are the people who live in the land of the East, where the Wicked Witch, sorry, Malicious Magician ruled. Until you flattened him. And only bad magicians are evil, cruel and all that. Now, Munchkins! Everybody out!" The bushes rattled.

"If I see one pantaloon, I will KILL EVERY ONE OF YOU!" screamed Mr Buttons.

"Oh, damn. They're so easy to scare," Mrs Underwood sighed. "It's alright. I know how to convince them."

"Where are the magicians?" Kitty demanded, covering Mr Buttons with a Mr Tipple.

Mrs Underwood wasn't listening. Instead, she got out a small spray bottle, squirted into her mouth, tried an octave of C major --not the most exciting scale, you know. G major is my favourite, that's because F# is easier on recorder than F natural, and for the first grade you can do the arpeggio with one— --fearsome geology dictionary flies out-- OK, OK—tried an octave of C major and began to sing.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are, to meet the young lady, who fell from a star!"

From every clean nook and cranny heads rose cautiously.

"I THINK I SEE TIGHTS!" roared Mr Buttons threateningly. They all retreated.

"Bug— I mean, oh bother," Mrs Underwood rescued herself from raising the rating just a little bit (or at the very least, not being a good role model). "She fell from the sky, she fell very far, and London she says is the name of the star."

"London she said is the name of the star," echoed the Munchkins, lulled by the singing.

"Singing, eh?" snarled Mr Buttons. "Is that what turns you on? OK. CRAWLING IN MY SKIN! THESE WOUNDS, THEY WILL NOT HE-EL! FEAR IS HOW I—"

Kitty walloped the off-key puppet into a nearby tree. "Sorry."

"Tell him I darn socks like him for quilting bees," said Mrs Underwood. "Anyway. She brings you good news, oh, haven't you heard? Well she fell out of London, a miracle occurred!"

Cue somewhat allegro march. The Munchkins, midgets in baby doll outfits, stride out of their hiding places and start to assemble around the Merciful Magician and Revolution member.

"I am not singing," Kitty stated. "I don't get paid enough."

Paid. Right . . .

A mayoral-looking Munchkin dressed in a hat like a tall paper ship and brightly coloured over-sized tailcoat hopped forwards.

"Don't worry, we'll work around it," he whispered behind his hand. Then, he took a breath, and began to sing.

"What happened was no miracle," he sung in a pretty decent falsetto voice. "What happened was just this. The land not all Republican, had an unseasonable low-pressure system, and I'd say the play became, just Grecian. Just then, the magician, upon his doubtful mission, went flying on her broomstick, thumbing for a fusion." Now he reverted to his own, which wasn't all that different. "And, oh, what happened next was supposed to rhyme with 'itch' but I'll say was terrible allusion!"

A line of woman dressed in stereotypical pre-Women's-Liberation fare advanced. "The wind went through a flexion, the house had a communion, and landed on the Magician in the middle of a questionable opinion of democracy for the Mean Magician."

Oh, the damn syllables and feet! I wish I had a chapter skip and subtitles at this point!

"I think it's good considering the circumstances," said Kitty as the Munchkins skipped around repeating the verse.

Really?

"No. But it was a good try anyway," she shrugged.

A fanfare from elsewhere drew attention back on scene. Kitty was blocked one side by a pretty coach that had rolled past out of nervousness, the other by a weird looking fountain, behind by Mrs Underwood and in front by the rabble of Munchkins, so she had no choice but to listen to the horrible AAAA verse.

"We thank you very sweetly,

For doing it so neatly—"

A more macabre Munchkin took over.

"You killed him so completely,

"So we thank you very sweetly." Not at all ashamed that he rhymed 'sweetly' with 'sweetly', he handed over a small bouquet of spring flowers to the unenthusiastic Kitty.

"Is the singing over now?" she asked, tossing the flowers over her shoulder. "Because I really need to—"

"Let the joyous news be spread!" Mrs Underwood disregarded her. "The Malicious Middle-aged Magician is at last, dead."

A band struck up a happy brass selection as each and every Munchkin proved to be trained singers.

"Ding Dong Bang! The Magician is dead! Which middle-aged Magician? That weird Malicious one! Ding Dong Bang, the Malicious Magician is dead!"

"Excuse me!" Kitty tried to call over the third-octave din. "But I really, really want to go back home now!"

"Wake up, you sleepy head!" they shrilled, as if anybody could sleep through this without sedation involving anesthetic and bricks. "Rub your eyes! Get out of bed! Ding Dong Bang, the Malicious Magician is dead!"

At this point the singing became so shrill I couldn't translate, so let's imagine a lot of 'Yo-ho! Yo-ho!' and 'Lah, li, lah!' and 'Boom, bam, boom, boom boom-boom!' (The last one from the spurned Beet-boxers from the country of modern-day Pots of the North-and-a-little-to-the-East) in the background while Kitty is forced to socialize.

Another fanfare sounds and yet another short and fat Munchkin arrives from washing his little hair and squeezing into his tight trousers. From this evidence, we must assume he is of some importance. A mayor perhaps. Or maybe the choreographer.

"As mayor of the Munchkin city," damn. I was hoping to meet the guy that could work a cart through a crowd. "In the county of the Land of Ahz. I welcome you so regally—"

Another impressively dressed Munchkin in purple pops over his shoulder (not very difficult). "But we've got to verify it legally! To see—"

"To see—" the mayor tries to return focus on him.

"If she—"

"If she—"

"Is," the purple Munchkin takes a deep breath, "Morally, ethically—"

"Disposed of?" Kitty tries to finish impatiently.

Another Munchkin joins in, "Spiritually, physically—"

"Deranged?" Mr Buttons snapped.

Yet another, "Positively, absolutely—"

"Well insured?" asked Mr Tipple.

"Undeniably and reliably—"

"GET ON WITH IT!" shouted Kitty and Mr Buttons. Possibly my all-time favourite Monty Python quote. The first one I remembered even when I forgot the movie. Ah, 'Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail'! A moderately exciting storyline, action, laughs, really bad scenery—

--Unanimous cry of "GET ON WITH IT!"--

Right, right.

"Dead!" finished the Munchkins.

"Just how malicious was this magician to survive having a house on his head?" Kitty, and, for that matter, everyone else, wanted to know.

"You'd be surprised," shrugged Mrs Underwood, as a Munchkin in a take of a Munchkin doctor's uniform hurried to investigate the possible corpse. "He's had guns let loose on him, cannons, one of those baseball-pitching machines, a statue on him, everything. He even was attacked by a rabid weasel in his pyjamas. What it was doing in his pyjamas I'll never know." –Cue drum kit—"Badda boom!"

--Rude joke book rain-- OK, OK, I'm sorry!

"As coroner-im—" I don't think there's a profession that examines dead bodies and rhymes properly with 'im', "—I've –something I didn't hear properly—him, I've thoroughly examined him. And he's not only merely dead, he's really, most sincerely of terrible taste."

There are groans from the crowd.

"Larry, we've been through this eleven times!" sighed the purple Munchkin through grit teeth. "Get serious!"

"Sorry, sorry," grinned the coroner-im. "Yep. He's dead all right. He can't go far without his –gory coroner details--."

"Anyway!" the mayor steps forwards. "Then his is a day of independence, for all Munchkins and their descendants! Unless you vote for that John Latham guy, who on top of being most restrictive has false teeth!"

"Damn you Howard!" howled a Munchkin from the crowd. "At least they're more realistic than your wig!"

"YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY TO ME!" roared the mayor.

"Calm down Mark," muttered the purple Munchkin.

Mark —whose name was not based on an Australian politician, no way— took a deep breath. "OK. Let the joyous news be spread! The Malicious middle-aged Magician is _finally_ dead!"

Only took a house and a hurricane to do so.

Again, marching and singing. Kitty was only restrained from turning the area into the land of few by Mrs Underwood and the thought that since this country was now indebted to her she could get extra members for the Resistance! Yes! Can I weave a parody, or can I weave a parody?

"Is there another option?" Kitty muttered.

From a brass band that looked and acted more like an army (if they had so many damn people, why didn't they try guerilla warfare?) three other Munchkins arrived dressed in uniforms of a weird translucent colour.

"We represent the Jellybaby Club! The Jellybaby Club! The Jellybaby Club! And in the name of, the Jellybaby Club," they repeated in shrill voices for those short of attention. "We wish to inform you that your roof ended up in our club and it crushed our last president. Thank you."

Then they walked off somewhere, and another three slightly less-weird beings came up in tutus or lumberjack costume. One was wearing a combination of both. Don't ask.

"We represent the Musk Sticks League! The Musk Sticks League! The Musk Sticks League! And in the name of the Musk Sticks League! We wish to welcome you to Munchkin Land!" They handed over another bouquet of flowers, a large cluster of thick musk sticks (ooh, I am so jealous) and a sponge cake.

"It's got a file inside," whispered the tutu-ed and lumberjack-ed Munchkin. "You'll need that if Johnny tries to kidnap you."

"We welcome you to Munchkin land!" sung the crowd. "Fa-la-lala-la la lah!"

"From now on you'll be history!" said the mayor creepily.

"You'll be his—" said the purple Munchkin.

"You'll be his—" said a rival red Munchkin.

"You'll be history," finished the mayor, glaring at them. "And you'll be—"

"SCENE HACK!"

The crowd of Munchkins suddenly shrieked, and did the very wise thing of diving on the ground with their hands over their heads. The Disclaimer Demons screamed into view.

"WE HAVE FOUND THEM!" screamed the female.

"YES!" shouted the male. "USING OUR AWESOME CLICHÉ-FINDING POWERS, WE HAVE—"

"YOU ARE BEGINNING A MONOLOGUE! STOP!" interrupted the female. "ANYWAY! WE HAVE FOUND THEM, EMPLOYER!"

A fug of smoke suddenly erupted from the crowd, and Munchkins came flying out like flies to fruitcake in reverse. As the smoke blew away, a slim figured, beautiful, ravishing, oh-so-desirable—

--Another cry of "GET ON WITH IT" and avalanche of Anne McCaffrey books—

SORRY! Geez, can't I sort of interact with my own story? Yous are so mean . . .

—Oh-so-desirable but nonetheless Malicious Magician appeared. Her hair was long, shiny and chestnut, her eyes as green as the jealousy of a soap-opera character. She was dressed all in black, with a sleeveless mini dress with long shreds on its bottom hem and long black-netted gloves and long socks with calf-high boots with sharp high-heels and black pointy hat. The Disclaimer Demons did a weird, non-clichéd cross between a bow and hop in honour.

Kitty flinched from the terrible paragraph before. The Magician stalked to the store, and inspected the legs of the Magician. The dead one. The live one inspected the dead one's leg. Sorry. If the mercenary had a name other than 'The Mercenary' this would all be easier.

"Who is she?" Kitty asked.

"That first one was the Magician of the East. This one is the Magician of the West. Sorry, I forgot to mention her beforehand. She's worse than the other," explained Mrs Underwood.

"And you tell me that _now_?" Kitty hissed as the (live) Malicious Magician advanced.

"Who killed my Master's-employee-in-another-dimension?" she hissed. "Who killed the Malicious Magician of the East? Was you, my canon-pairing rival?"

"Eh?" went Kitty. "No! I didn't kill anyone! Well, maybe I did, a little. But it was an accident."

"I'm innocent!" screamed Mr Buttons. "I was framed! I was manipulated! He's the one you want!" he pointed to Mr Tipple. "He's the ringleader!"

"Shut up!" Mrs Underwood snapped. "Back to plot. Don't you want those boots?"

"Huh?" went Jane, turning around. "Ew! They're huge and ugly! And they're on a dead guy!"

"Get the boots," Mrs Underwood repeated.

"No way! You get them!" Jane argued.

"Just get the god damned boots _now_!" shouted Mrs Underwood.

"OK, OK!" said Jane, storming over to her once co-worker.

Somebody off-scene then fell into the strings pit, then the boots disappeared. The legs blanched, then tried to get up, failed, then attempted to escape under the house by pedaling pathetically.

"What the –coarse word-- is going on?" Jane shouted, spinning around angrily and stalking back up the steps. "The ugly boots are gone and you're smiling like that! What did you do?"

Mrs Underwood only smiled kindly, and pointed to Kitty's feet. Suddenly the boots sprang up her legs, climbing up to half her thigh, then tightened gently and shone a much more acceptable shade of red.

"Holy foliots!" Jane exclaimed. "They look really hot right now! Darn it, give them to me! I've got the perfect handbag to go with them!"

"Sorry," said Mrs Underwood. "This girl's got the perfect knees for this. You get nothing."

"Give them to me," Jane repeated hotly. "Only I know how to use them. It's of no use to a Commoner like her! And my knees are good too!"

"You'd better not give them to her," Mrs Underwood murmured to Kitty. "They must be powerful if she wants them so bad. And don't worry, dear. You just need some more meat on your bones and you'll be as pretty as her."

"You stay out of this, Martha!" snarled Jane. "Or I'll fix you too! I'm an under-appreciated character!"

"Oh?" Mrs Underwood raised her starred wand threateningly. "Well, I'm an _obscure_, _short-lived_ character, girl. I can whop your butt here. Begone, lest there be another house to fall on you!" The demons shifted uncomfortably.

"Damn," cursed Jane. "The news report did mention about showers of properties. Very well. I'll bide my time. And as for you, my plain adolescent, I may not be able to attend to you as I like right now, but just try to stay out of my way, just try!" The eyes of the Disclaimer Demons twitched in unison.

"I'll get you, my pretty," said Jane Farrar menacingly to Kitty as the demons started tremble. "And you're little sock puppets too!"

The demons lost control. "A RE-MASTERED QUOTE! MUST DESTROY!"

"Oi!" shouted Jane. "Behave, or you won't get your reward!"

"CAN'T FIGHT INSTINCTS!" screamed the female. "MUST DESTROY ALL CLICHÉS!"

"Damn, you can never work with these things," Jane cursed. "Oh well, must make a quick getaway. "Goodbye!" she vanished in a puff of tastefully glittery smoke.

"Hey! What about the—?" Kitty cursed in a less maidenly way, and checked herself for any weapons. "Damn," she said, when her search found none. There is little need for weapons in being a clerk, unless you should come across a nasty stuck-hard letter.

Suddenly, a group of Jellybaby Club members leapt up from the ground, pulling out weapons cleverly concealed in tiny pockets in their brightly coloured uniforms.

"Justice will prevail!" one said, snapping a bullet into his two-metre-long gun on a stand.

"Faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than steel, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!" said another, strapping on a glove with brass knuckles and an arm guard built on.

"Welcome, Wally Watchers!" said another, strapping on a full body suit made of special material stronger than titanium and lighter than plastic that had inbuilt crossbow and oven.

The demons turned angrily to them, shadows writhing into horrible shapes around their bodies.

"YOU CANNOT BEAT OUR KIND!" shouted the female, streaking past a shell and knocking back the first Jellybaby Club member.

"AS WE ARE RESISTANT TO CLICHÉS!" agreed the male, taking a hit from the glove in the face then slamming down its owner.

"ALTHOUGH THEY ARE ANNOYING!" added the female as she and the male tackled the Munchkin in the body suit.

Now free of any challenges, the demons looked around pitilessly.

"WE HAVE BEATEN ALL OUR FOES!" said the male. "BUT WE WILL NOT LAUGH IN TRIUMPH!"

"INSTEAD, WE WILL DISCUSS RESTAURANT PRICES IN GERMAN!" said the female.

"Stop them!" Kitty hissed, tugging at Mrs Underwood's sleeve.

"Oh, don't worry, dear," said the calm Merciful Magician. "They may be resistant to normal uses of clichés, but not of—"

Another house fell out of the sky, landed directly on the demons.

"—Not of repeated allusions," Mrs Underwood finished. "Ah, a boutique. I think I may need to get another dress, this one makes my ankles look fat."

Kitty just stared at the scene, wondering how someone could have made an insane comedy parody fic out of a deep, insightful and detailed book that used more social irony than pathetic puns and situations.

My feelings are really hurt.

"You've made quite a bad enemy of the Malicious Magician," said Mrs Underwood. "Though where the heck those demons came from I don't know. The sooner you get out of Ahz altogether, the better you'd sleep, my dear."

"Look," sighed Kitty, gritting her teeth. "I _would_ get out of this hallucination if I could, but I don't have a damn clue how! London is nowhere near anywhere this clean! And I can't get back the way I came!"

"Hmm," said Mrs Underwood, thinking. "The only person possibly wise enough to help you is the Great and Wickedly Powerful Awesome And Totally Splendiferous Wizard of Ahz himself. Ahz."

"Aahz?" Kitty repeated anxiously.

"No relation," said Mrs Underwood. "Now he is very good, but also—"

"Huh?"

"Nothing, dear. He is also very—"

"What do you mean, nothing?" Kitty demanded.

"Nothing, nothing. Is also very—"

"You just said something about when I said Aahz!" Kitty exclaimed. "And then you go 'no relation'! What are you meaning?"

"Oh, for Lord's sake!" Mrs Underwood scowled. "It's an allusion. An allusion to another book that has changed this author's life almost equal to the 'Bartimaeus Trilogy'! And generally, allusions are to have no effect on the storyline! Can I go on now?"

"Oh. Sorry."

"Now, the Great Wickedly Powerful Awesome And Totally Splendiferous Wizard lives in the City of . . . of . . . what's a good rock name?"

Now, again, the flow of the story is interrupted by a script check. A couple of backstage hands rush on stage, dressed in non-gothic black, one carrying a copy of the book, the other 'Roget's International Thesaurus', which is a very nice story by the way. It starts, '1. EXISTANCE — NOUNS 1. Existence, subsistence, being; entity, essence; occurrence, presence; life (see 406)—'

--Nondescript School Dictionary spins from offstage, catching the back of my skull--

OWIEE! That hurt!

"OK, there's Agate, Amethyst, no, hey, what about Obsidian!"

--Clicking sound of weapon being cocked-- Just say that again, I dare you.

"Huh?" went all.

Go on. Say it again. Add ebony to it. Then crow. Then ivory, I DARE YOU!

"What about sapphire?" suggested one of the backstage crew not paying attention.

--Sounds likened to: BOOOM! AHHH! HELLLP! NOOOO! HAVE MERCY!--

Any more overused adjectives?

"No, we're good," said the trepid cast.

Good children.

"What about emerald?" Tony, the curtain puller/costume designer specializing in crocheting, put up.

"That was the original name, stupid," said Anna, prompter and the one that uses the hook to drag off over-enthusiastic opening acts.

"Diamond?" suggested Mrs Underwood.

"We're too cheap," replied Anna.

"Tofu?" suggested Tony, who had taken too many lights and sandbags to the head. Anna ignored him.

"Cat's eye?" suggested Kitty, worried she wasn't getting enough lines in the unscripted bit. "You know, to go with Kitty?"

"How about Chrysoprase?" said Tony, whose spasms of intelligence were also attained to sandbags or inhaling wool fumes.

"That sucks!" Mr Buttons put in.

"And have a crime leader troll from Discworld sue us?" shot down Anna.

"Turquoise?" suggested Mrs Underwood.

"Jasper?" went Anna.

"Tiger-Eye?" went Kitty.

"Chicken?" went Tony.

"Silver?" went the poor lad I shot at just before, who when his trauma induced amnesia fades will realize his name is Donald.

"No!" snapped Anna. "We can't have djinn in the story if there's a city made of silver! Besides, it'll heat up, tarnish, and get stolen!"

Not to mention, it _is_ sorta an overused word . . .

"PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!" screamed Donald.

For Odin's sake, we've been ten Microsoft Word pages making two chapters without finishing the second chapter of 'The Wizard of Oz'! Would you _please_ get on with it?

"We can't go nowhere if we haven't decided the name for the city!" Anna said. "If you had planned this just a little better we'd be at the scarecrow chapter now!"

Sorry! Make it pyrite!

"What are you talking about?" demanded Anna. "Stop that Geologist mumbo-jumbo and give us a real name!"

It _is_ a real name! Fool's Gold, you know? Sorta irony, considering how prideful the Wizard is.

"Ah . . . OK," everyone agreed.

Everyone went back to his or her role, except for Donald, who sort of wobbled off in a random direction.

"Anyway," said Mrs Underwood. "He lives in the Pyrite City, which is a long journey from here."

Wait a minute! Pyrite is a metal!

"GET ON WITH IT!" everyone shouts.

OK, OK.

"Did you bring your broomstick? Oh, sorry, stupid question," said Mrs Underwood, quailing under Kitty's ferocious glare. "You'll have to walk. The Munchkins will walk you safely to the border of Munchkin Land."

"That's OK," Kitty sighed. "I can walk fine on my—"

"And remember, dear," said Mrs Underwood, ignoring her again. "Never let those Ruby Boots off your feet for a moment, or you'll be vulnerable to any attack from the Malicious Magician of the West."

"I think I can take care of—" again, Kitty was interrupted when Mrs Underwood seized her head, and kissed her on the forehead.

"Now, it's always best to start at the beginning," said Mrs Underwood, stating the obvious. "And all you do is follow the yellow brick road," with the majestic sweep of her wand, she illustrated a yellow bricked path that started in a spiral, then headed out of the town.

Kitty glanced at Mrs Underwood, then resignedly walked over to the start of the spiral.

"Hey, wait a minute," she paused. "What if I—"

"Don't worry, dear," Mrs Underwood said, kindly. "I will answer all the questions you—"

Suddenly, a small shed slammed into the ground next to her, exploding in a shower of woodchips and fertilizer. Mrs Underwood let out a very un-lady-like curse.

"--Curse word--! This was my best dress! I've got to go change!" without so much as a goodbye, she created another pink bubble, hopped in, then sped away.

Kitty stared after her, then glanced at the Munchkins. It was eerie the way they all stared. She began to cut across the spiral in the direction of the exit out of town, but a Munchkin hopped in front of her.

"Follow the yellow brick road!" it said cheerily.

Kitty smiled nervously, and stepped back on the path.

Another Munchkin popped up.

"Follow the yellow brick road!" it said.

"I-I am," Kitty said, attempting to cut across again.

Another Munchkin jumped in front, and said in a voice that was likely achieved by breathing in a tube of helium then using a synthesizer, "Follow the yellow brick road!"

"Follow the yellow brick road!" said another like the one before.

The crowd drew together again. "Follow the yellow brick road. Follow the yellow brick road. Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road!"

Their sudden advance made Kitty almost leap in the air, but she stopped herself, and took a calming breath—

"Follow the yellow brick, follow the yellow, follow the yellow brick— hey! She missed a loop!"

—Then ran like a hare.

The Munchkins growled a unanimous inhuman growl, then rushed at Kitty. She gave an unintentional squeal of fright (she was ashamed, but then again, those Munchkins were freaky), and raced along the straightening yellow brick road.

"You're off to see the wizard!" cried the Munchkins, catching up pretty quickly on their short legs. "The Wonderful Wizard of Ahz! He really is a wiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was!"

Kitty let out a scream as a surge of brightly dressed Munchkins popped out of an alley beside her, and frothed alarmingly at the mouths.

"If ever there ever a wiz there was the Wizard of Ahz is one because—"

The shoes went through a sudden acceleration, then crashed into each other, making Kitty trip into the mass of growling Munchkins.

—The End—

Just kidding. She fought them off the ran even faster amidst the chorus of:

"—Because, because, because, because! Because of the wonderful things he— hey, what does he do again?"

Kitty headed full pelt for the hills then, and just as she passed the fence that marked the end of Munchkin Country, slammed into a flat background.

From the house that landed on the demons, there was thumping at the door. Finally it was blown over by a non-physical force. A boy around his teen years, from the time when there was no such thing as 'teen years', poked his head out and around.

"Aahz?" he said.

"Next time, I'm getting Tania to teach ya control, kid," came a thoroughly annoyed voice from inside. "What, Skeeve?"

A young-looking but nonetheless big dragon slipped out of the front door too, and sat there panting great gusts of bad breath.

"I don't think we're in Klah any more, Gleep."

* * *

And that's all for now, folks!

Sorry about the wait. Dad finally fixed the computer, loaded all of Grandma's files on it, brought it to her house . . . then forgot to load up Microsoft Word and was unable to arrange the Internet.

On the plus side, I learned how to play computer Hearts! EVIL QUEEN OF SPADES!

So everything will be somewhat late, but there. Better late then never, right?

Right?

Read and review, please!


	4. If I never had a brain

I'm . . . dreamin' of a White . . . Christ . . . mas.

Just like the ones I see on TV.

Anyway, now is the time to introduce those that stand in for the Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. This may take a while, because what with Christmas coming (Merry Christmas all, by the way), and after which I am going to a folk festival for a week where there are no computers or electronic devices of any sort. WAHHH! I MISS MY COMPUTER ALREADY!

Anyway, onto my mass of reviews! OK, it was only one this time, but this is a small section and only the beginning! I don't feel disappointed at all! I have no voodoo ingredients anyway! Never mind, never mind.

the Thirteenth Councilor: Hello again, and thank you for reviewing!

I feel your pain most deeply. In bands, or, in any times of great importance, there will always be one time that you stand out. In the bad way. Your story brought tears to my eyes, or at least, made me regard my flute (my other instrument) in great suspicion.

Great news about 'Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail!' You could always tell your teacher it explains, or, at least parodies, what served as the basis of our society today! Or, maybe, it illustrates the acceptance of British Comedy into our culture! Or, maybe, that it is really, really funny. Ni! Ni!

Thanks a lot for your support!

Ah, and before I start this chapter, some warnings.

WARNING! THIS CHAPTER MAY PORTRAY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS IN A RATHER UNFLATTERING LIGHT! THIS IS USED TO EMPHASIZE AND EXAGGERATE THEIR ROLES IN THE PARODY, AND DOES NOT REFLECT THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS OF THE AUTHOR!

And,

WARNING! THIS CHAPTER INVOLVES CARD GAMES! THEIR CONTENT HAS BEEN WATERED DOWN WITH DIALOGUE AND SNAPPY DESCRIPTIONS, BUT IN THE CASE OF COMPETITION OVERLOAD, PLEASE IMMEDIATELY LEAVE YOUR COMPUTER AND PLAY EITHER A 'BEAT 'EM UP' OR 'SHOOT 'EM UP' VIDEO GAME!

Now that's over, let's begin!

* * *

The set was just being set up. The final leaves were glued, the final words of the script were finalized for the second-to-last time, the previous occupants of the area had finished up there episode and had painted the grass green again, and the coffee machine was perking. All was well, except . . . 

"Bob?"

"Yep."

"Rob?"

"Yep."

"Cob?"

"Sure."

"Mr Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III?"

"Present."

"Various cows and football teams?"

"Check!" gasped Tony, dragging a bag of filth behind him. "They're filthy! And the cows eat everything!"

"Alright, that's all the OCs," said Anna, checking her checklist. "What about the Originals?"

"Mrs Underwood left in a huff after we told her we won't need her for a few more chapters," Donald said, stumbling past with a spotlight. "And Miss Farrar won't leave!"

"I WANT MY SCENE!"

--Magical crash!--

"I'll deal with her later," said Anna absentmindedly. "Where are Kitty and our Scarecrow?"

"I'm here," said Kitty grumpily, stalking over, holding an ice pack to her head.

"Where have you been?" asked Anna disapprovingly. "You were supposed to be here half an hour ago!"

"Yeah, well, it took a while to pry me out of the background," said Kitty said, meaningfully glaring at her.

"I said I was sorry," said Anna, saying as if once was enough for such a tiny mistake. "It wasn't my fault. The endless plains were booked for a 4Kids remake of an anime originally meant for teens now aimed at a younger group no-one can specify."

Kitty slunk over to a chair and got out her copy of the script.

"Who's the scarecrow?" she asked after a minute's read.

"I'm not allowed to state that," said Anna. "It's coming up in the following scene."

"Oh, great," sighed Kitty. "Let me guess. Our author's using the preceding scene as filler."

"Maybe," shrugged Anna. "Hey, head up to makeup, and they'll hide that bruise."

Kitty, in a series of events that could be applied to the source of her nickname, growled, stood up, and stalked away.

Anna sighed, and crossed off a line in her checklist. "Guess a cameo by the guys of a highly merchandised anime is out of the question now. And Tony, PLEASE CONTROL THOSE JABBERWOCKIES!"

Everybody ready?

"Hang on!" Tony yelped, trying to coax a large camel-like beast from the Andes into a pen.

Ready?

"No!" yelled Kitty, running out of the makeup room with a hurriedly covered black eye.

Here we go . . .

"Wait a moment!" Anna called. "We're missing the scarecrow!"

He's already on scene. Ready? Lights, camera, parody!

* * *

If I Never had a Brain . . .

Panting horribly, Kitty stumbled down the yellow brick road. The boots were thick and worn in for the mercenary, which meant that on top of the fact her legs were getting sweaty from being encased in a three-quarter inch of boot substance the boot's 'knee' was a hand's length above hers and kept riding down, and would likely cause an itchy rash and slowly scrape the skin off her bones.

As she was focused on trying to match wits with a pair of boots (inanimate objects may not have so sophisticated wits, but they are hard set), she didn't notice the land was changing to farms and things. Which was good, because being a city girl would likely scream at a cow.

"Oh, that's a cow."

OK, she didn't scream. But that was likely because 'barnyard animals' was a well-covered subject in London preschools— OH MY GOD! A LLAMA!

"Alpaca," said Kitty calmly, settling to rolling down the top of the boots as far as it would go, making it more comfortable.

Right, right. Not that I was scared or anything, it's just to fill up narration— HOLY SUNFLOWERS!

"Iguanas," said Kitty.

Why would anyone want to— SWEET LEMON-CHICKEN COMBOS!

"Jabberwockies of the speckled pink variety," said Kitty, hardly glancing at the unforgivable crossover with Lewis Carroll's work.

You can't upstage me! I'm the narrator! Take this!

"Um . . . Ostriches."

. . . They're emus, actually. Runs off crying

She then passed fields of crops of various and sometimes doubtful uses. There was wheat, barley, a doubtful use, alfalfa, potatoes, a possibly medical use, and, apparently, crows.

"Get away from me you feather knots! Hey, hey, stop that! Try that again and I'll— OW! If I was free, I would shove your beak up your—"

We stop mercifully there to ask some unnecessary but preparatory questions. Will Kitty notice the curses? Will the character join her party of one? And who, yes, who will be the Scarecrow? All these questions and more shall be answered in following paragraphs, and possibly, a magic 8 ball. Look, it's a parody. You can't expect lots of originality.

"Blast it! That tastes disgusting! Ew, ew, would you _stop_ that! WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP— oh, hello down there."

Kitty stopped and stared at the densest gathering of crows. There, tied nastily to a cross piece, was what would correspond to the Scarecrow character and searcher of brains. You know him, you love him, he's got a trilogy and hundreds of fans dedicated to him . . .

It's . . .

"Don't use my name!" cried out Bartimaeus. "Oh, damn."

"What are you?" Kitty asked the straw bound entity.

"A djinni," sniffed the crow decorated Bartimaeus.

No you're not.

"You're a scarecrow," said Kitty.

"No I'm not!" exclaimed Bartimaeus. "I'm a djinni of great reputation!" As one would expect, this was a great time for a crow above to do what crows are most loathsome of doing.

"No you're not," Kitty said. "You're a scarecrow."

"I'm a djinni!" said Bartimaeus resolutely.

"Scarecrow."

"Djinni."

"Scarecrow!"

"Djinni!"

"Why are you covered in straw and crows then?"

"Why am I made out of rock and moss then?"

"You are _supposed_ to be the scarecrow!" Kitty charged him.

"Why do I have to be the scarecrow? I already got brains!" There is unanimous agreement from fans, as well as the clicking of many shotguns.

Everything shall be explained . . .

"I am a djinni!" cried out Bartimaeus proudly. "I am Bartimaeus! Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the mighty, the Serpent of the Silver Plumes and first place winner in the 'Best Loved Demonic Anti-Hero' competition! I am—"

YOU ARE THE SCARECROW OR DISPOSABLE BYSTANDER NUMBER 37 IN 'THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW'!

"What? An extra? You dare belittle one of such great—"

My surveillance crows! ATTACK!

"Hey, wait, no, YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"

I am the author of this parody fic, and I will parody and nobody can stop me. MWAHAHAH!

/A lie down and a few cups of sweet tea later\

"Yeah. Scarecrow. That's me," said the battered Bartimaeus.

Put some feeling into it!

"Yay! I'm the Scarecrow! Duh!" said Bartimaeus again, mimicking the face of someone slammed into a wall by the head four-and-a-half times.

"What are you doing up there?" asked Kitty, now that my borrowed secret spy network of crows had left to get me some wedges for lunch. Damn, I should have given them an extra fifty cents for some sour cream . . .

"I'm scarecrow-ing. What's it look like?" snapped Bartimaeus. "Yeah, yeah. I'm made of straw and stuff and they forgot a brain. Happy now?"

Actually, you're only the scarecrow _metaphorically_. You're still the demon you are (though slightly restricted to make the plot easier) but you're simply playing the part.

"You tell me that _now?_" shouted Bartimaeus in disbelief. "Next time I'm getting a buddy to go with me next time I walk in incredibly kidnapper-dense territory!"

I was going there to get the paper. Not my fault if the weekend edition suddenly leapt from my hand and clobbered you. You could never get a buddy any— oh, that's too mean.

"Whatever," with his wicked demon skillz he managed to burn the ropes off and land head first on the ground in a cloud of narrative effect.

"How did you get up there?" Kitty asked as Bartimaeus tried to get the crow goo off his gargoyle skin without actually touching the stuff.

"They put me up there," Bartimaeus 'explained', turning his head around, ooh, let's say, 196 degrees to check his back. "You don't have any disinfectant, do you?"

"Who put you up there and why?" asked Kitty impatiently. Dorothy never had this problem.

"Oh, right, I suppose I have to explain a very descriptive story now, right?" Bartimaeus asked as my crows returned with— Oi! Where's the change?

"That would be nice," said Kitty, tapping her foot, which turned out to be a mistake, because the boots suddenly rolled up again.

"OK. Roll clip!" Bartimaeus pulled out a projector from about his djinni person, and a convenient screen pops out of nowhere.

/Five days ago\

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the farmers shining and singing to rival them. A good year of sun and rain had brought great crops to them and so all were feeling happy and bright.

Guess who came along?

"Good morning, mate!" said the farmers cheerily to a passing cloaked fellow. "Care to have a drink with us?"

The figure stopped.

"Great harvest this year, eh mate?" one said, raising a glass of beer— ginger beer, not alcoholic, no, no way— in an expression of good will.

Suddenly the figure whipped off his cloak, revealing himself to be the stony gargoyle I like him to be. Bartimaeus!

"That depends!" he boomed in an impressive voice. "Upon whether you have me in a good mood or not!"

The farmers just smiled good-naturedly and raised their glasses. "Well, if you are in a good mood, have a drink with us now."

"If it's all the same to you, I'll think I'll have one anyway!" with a swift movement Bartimaeus swept all the glasses off the table and, in an equally but less admirable way, swallowed all in a single gulp. Then he burped. Because of the drama really, because djinn don't really have stomachs, so can't really build up gas in them then release them either way. Oh, sorry. Am I distracting you?

The farmers stared silently at their empty table for a while, then the smiles returned.

"I'll have to get some more beer then," one said cheerily. "Cheerio!"

"Wait a minute!" said Bartimaeus in his deliciously evil voice they will likely not get right in the movie. "Don't you know who I am?"

"Well, I'm Bob," said the bound-to-get-beer farmer. "And that's Rob—" a farmer with a checkered shirt and large belly farming should have gotten rid of, "Cob—" another farmer with blonde hair standing up in a, yes, you guessed it, corn shape, "And Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III," a very out of place aristocrat man dressed in dark clothes in the style of Ye Olde English waved demurely with a glass of wine. "He manages the sheep dip."

"OK . . ." Bartimaeus seemed taken back that nobody was screaming in fright or for his blood then. "Well then, how about this sheep dip?" he then grabbed the nearest barnyard animal, and with a mighty heave, sent it flying into the distance.

". . . That was a cow," noted Bob. Oh. So _that's_ why there was a lost cow in London in chapter one. I knew that all along. It's just part of my M4D 4U7H0R 5KILLZ.

—"No, _you're_ a mad cow skull!"

"Can you keep your sock puppets quiet?"—

"Can we ask you what you're doing, mate?" asked Rob politely as focus from returned from five days later.

"Why, no. But I'll answer anyway. I am the djinni Bartimaeus!" at this he struck another pose suitable for people with dislocated hips or bishounen anime characters. "I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty, Serpent of the Silver Plumes and Best Looking 1st Person Narrating Character two years running! Well, there was that year when I lost to that stupid French Vampire thing . . . Blood Crucible MY ASS! However, that's not the problem in question here."

Yeah. How come there's all this junk about the Mayfair Witches AND NO MORE LESTAT!

"QUIET YOU TRAITOR!" Bartimaeus roared to somewhere off screen. "Anyway! I am Bartimaeus, Sakhr al-Jinni—"

"You said that before," Cob pointed out.

"You can never hear too much of my brilliance! Because it is only ever a quarter of my true magnificence!" said Bartimaeus. Isn't his lack of modesty SOOOO hot? "Anyway! I'm cool, I got lots of names, you know it. Now, my business here is simple yet so intricate in our modern society! I'm going to have as much fun as I want here! And, at the moment, my current idea of fun is to warp with everyone's mind, so, here I go!"

With a great sweep of his bicep-bulging arm, he sent Bob, Rob, Cob, the table, the front porch of the house, a horse cart (with horses) and a misplaced football team (hang on, how am I going to work that in? Damn you!) into the air and far, far away. There was not one scream, except for the horses and the football team which are gag elements and not counted as actual characters. So Bartimaeus found that he got no pleasure out of this.

"Damn. Now I'll just have to go and rape some rainforests of their beauty," be sighed, turning to go.

"Halt!" cried out an authoritative voice from behind him. He stopped and turned. And there, framed in the sun-filled haze of dust and destruction was—

"Hey, how dare you have a better introduction than me!" Bartimaeus shouted, completely ruining my lasciviously devised re-introduction of Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III.

"Sorry," said Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III, whom we shall just call Leonard— no, Charles— no Wildberry— no, Balderdash— no, a multitude of names like these. All that's important that is he isn't Bartimaeus.

Leonard seemed to notice that Bob, Rob, Cob, the table, the front porch of the house, a horse cart (with horses) and a misplaced football team was recently flung through the air.

"Oh, dear," Charles said. "That didn't seem very gentlemanly of you."

"I'm not a gentleman," Bartimaeus pointed out in his pointing-out way. "I'm a djinni!"

"Ah, of course," said Wildberry, seeming to realize something. "Doubtless, that means that you are wicked and cunning!"

"Yes!" said Bartimaeus proudly. "The wicked-est and cunning-est entity you shall ever meet!"

"Oh really?" said Balderdash politely. "Well, in that case, I think it would be best if I challenge you to a duel!"

"A what?" blurted out Bartimaeus.

A what? Hey, what is this? Is it turning into Yu-Gi-Oh?

Nah . . .

"And the loser will lose his soul to the Shadow Realm!" added Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III, brandishing a very nasty card.

NOOOOO! FORGIVE ME!

/Interlude music\

IT'S TIME! TO DU-DU-DU-DU D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-DUEL!

/Back to flashback\

"Just kidding!" said Leonard. "We're going to play Blackjack!" he turned over the card he was brandishing about an interlude ago, and it was a harmless . . . QUEEN OF SPADES! AHHHHH!

"Blackjack? That doesn't sound like a very gentlemanly game," noted Bartimaeus, just as I finished having my panic attack. Evil . . . Evil Queen of Spades . . .

"Oh well," said Charles cheerily. "You know how to play, don't you?"

"Sure," sighed Bartimaeus. He held his hand to the side for a moment. A book entitled 'The Encyclopaedia of Games' is thrown from the side, struck his ear, then landed neatly into his hand. Pretending that this was absolutely fine and dandy (Anna must work on her temper) he flicked open the book that fell at a passage. "The object of the game is to gain a total of 21 points or as near as possible without busting – going over 21 – with two or more cards."

Charles nodded in agreement, then held out his hand to his side. A deck of cards was tossed gently from offside, and he snatched it from the air. "Thanks Tony. I'll be dealer since you threw my friends over the hills and far away. Cut the deck, please."

_Darn it,_ thought Bartimaeus as he shuffled the cards. _All I wanted was to spread fear and loathing. Now this chump is challenging me to a duel— ahem, game of Blackjack. And he had a better introduction and treatment in my story! He must pay!_

"Oh my gosh! Look at that!" Bartimaeus exclaimed, pointing in a random direction. Wildberry glanced away, and Bartimaeus sneakily went through all the cards, mentally copying down the patterns and working out a method to superimpose one image on top of another. He did all this with the help of his multiple levels of consciousness that I could not for the life of me comprehend.

Balderdash turned back. "It's OK. Only mating season. Now, are you ready?" with a smile, he placed the first dealer card face up in front of him, then placed another face down in front of Bartimaeus. "Here is how we bet. First, you and I swap a personal item. Then in the following dealing, whoever has the highest amount (without busting) will get a third item, which I shall donate. Then in the following deal the winner will receive an item from the other. If one gets a pontoon, as well as becoming dealer, they get two items. Whoever has the most items at the end of five deals will win, or, if one loses when one doesn't have any items, the other person wins. Understand?"

Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III put down his item. It was a lavender furry teddy bear with the cutest blue ribbon. Adding to this, he put down what looked like a cross between a dog whistle and a dream catcher with feathers.

Taking this all in quite patiently, Bartimaeus searched about his person for something to donate. He came up with a plushie form of Ptolemy, complete with shiny buttons eyes, because, children, one must not gamble with such material things such as money. It must be toys, focuses of the souls, which when stolen will leave their previous master grieving for the part of their childhood they have lost. MWAHAHAH!

Ahem, sorry. I take that back. Money, money, money. Burn it up like calories. Better yet, send it all my way, and I'll burn it for you.

Now all was set, Bartimaeus checked his first card, and frowned as if disappointed. Inwardly he was bouncing up and down with a party hat on. It was an Ace of Spades!

"Well?" Leonard prompted.

"YMCA! It's fun to stay at the— whoops. I mean, hit me," Bartimaeus indicted his card. Charles tossed a card down.

Bartimaeus checked his card, and his face rose in what could be interpreted as high elation, but was actually incredible dissatisfaction. He had ended up with a Two of Hearts, which is actually pretty useful in a game of Hearts, but not particularly so here. He scowled, which is to say he made a big smile, then put on an innocent act, which is to say he smiled eerily, and sat.

Wildberry's first card was an Eight of Hearts. He then served himself one more card, then held the both of them up.

"Will pay over nineteen," he said cheerfully, holding up his eighteen he had gotten with the Ten of Clubs.

If Bartimaeus had been a very, very good sport, he would have quite kindly put down his three/twelve without any deception. But as you might expect from somebody as wicked and cool as him, the thought didn't cross his minds. The thought of good sport, anyway.

"Pontoon!" he called delightedly, flipping up his Ace on the table.

Balderdash! I mean, Balderdash III nodded politely. "I'm sure that is true, Sir. But if you don't mind, could you let me check that?"

"Mr Leonard Chim-Chim Raspberry Blasphemy XXIII!" Bartimaeus exclaimed as if burnt. "How could you imply such a thing! I'm as innocent as the road kill remains of a kangaroo!" Which, as it happens, are not very innocent at all.

"Then there is no trouble showing me," Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III pointed out, never losing his calm face.

Bartimaeus sighed as if he did not understand why he went through such misunderstanding, and showed his face down card. A Ten of Hearts.

/Instant Replay!\

Bartimaeus checked his card, and his face rose in what could be interpreted as high elation, but was actually incredible dissatisfaction. He had ended up with a Two of Hearts, which is actually pretty useful in a game of Hearts, but not particularly so here. He scowled, which is to say he made a big smile, then put on an innocent act, which is to say he smiled eerily, and sat.

/Return to scene!\

"Hey," said Kitty— Whoops, went back too far. "Do you realize you just had a flashback in a flashback?"

"Just shut up and watch," said Bartimaeus, tossing some popcorn into his mouth.

"This isn't explaining anything," said Mr Tipple politely, so as to not cause any offence.

"Yeah!" Mr Buttons shockingly agreed. "STOP WASTING MY TIME AND HURRY UP!"

"Just wait a bit longer," said Bartimaeus patiently. "The best part is yet to come. Hah! Here it comes!"

(!-- flashbackmode.vr5 --!)

destinationday-5/1100—1200

(BR)

(CENTER) (HEADING1) /Back on the (B) RIGHT (/B) scene\ (/HEADING1) (/CENTER)

Ahem. Sorry about that. Machine crashed. Damn version 5. At least the 4 would autosave every three minutes! A little impractical at times, yeah, but better to be safe than . . . sorry. Let's go.

/Back on the **RIGHT** scene\

"Er, well, that seems to be in order!" said Leonard. His composure seemed unshaken. "That makes _you_ the dealer now, and you get my two items. Well done."

"Yeah, well, it was mostly due to luck," said Bartimaeus modestly. "As well as my awesome skillz." Luck as in he just so happened to be a djinni, capable of using mind tricks and manipulation of the first Plane. I think.

"Well then, you get the deck," Charles handed over the cards in a somewhat stiff way, "And Mr Leonard IV, and my whistle. You're winning already, Sir."

"Hah, of no surprise," said Bartimaeus smugly, taking the bear and whistle. "Wait a moment, you named you bear after yourself?"

"No," said Wildberry, as if affronted. "His full name is Mr Leonard Harrison Zhujiang Gooseberry-and-Cream Balderdash Simons! Harrison is my grandfather's name, Zhujiang my favourite river and Simons is from my mother's side!"

"And Gooseberry-and-Cream?"

"My favourite lip gloss flavour!"

". . . Right . . ." said Bartimaeus, feeling slightly worried. The gentleman seemed very intense about his bear. Best if he just played on.

"Alright, you want to cut the deck? No?" he said quickly. "Then let's start! Round Two, where I am already winning!"

He dealt himself the King of Spades, which is a very tricky card to get rid of in Hearts if you're worried about getting the dreaded QUEEN OF SPADES, but is pretty OK in this game. Then he gave two cards to Balderdash. He nodded, and asked for one more. Then he checked his cards, considered, asked for another, and laid down his— no, he paused, and asked for one more, then sat.

Isn't this match just thrilling? Oh boy, I've not had so much fun since I sat in front of a computer, staring at a Writer's Block, then decided to start a parody story for the heck of it. Not that this has anything to do with this story. Don't mind me, just read on.

Bartimaeus drew out his own card, glanced at it, and considered giving his opponent a chance in the name of good sportsmanship. Then forgot about it.

"Whoo! Pontoon again!" he cheered, holding up the smudged Ace of Diamonds. "Eat _that_ Strawberry! I win! Now you have to—"

"But you haven't even checked mine," said Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III, not one trace of frustration or the like.

"Hah! That doesn't matter!" cried Bartimaeus triumphantly. "I have Pontoon, and nothing can beat that—!"

"Except for a hand of five cards totalling 21 or less," pointed out Leonard. "I win this round. I'll take back my whistle, thanks."

Bartimaeus gaped at the neat line of the Two, Three, Four, Five and Six of Diamonds Charles had just thrown across the table. The whistle seemed to spirit itself into his waiting hand, which returned to his pocket, then returned to the table in time to find a glass of wine and carry it up to the lips.

"Round Three!" said Wildberry cheerfully. "Only two more to go, and you're still winning, Mr Djinni Sir."

Bartimaeus gave up on cheating in that round, settling for getting a measly eighteen from his three cards (a nine, three and a six, if you're interested. Which you're likely not). He lost to Balderdash's nineteen, and ended up losing his Ptolemy plushie for some reason.

"Aw, oo's a kwute widdle Egyptian boy? _Oo's a kwute widdle Tolly?_" Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III cooed. "Anyway! Round Four! And _I'm_ winning now!"

Bartimaeus grit his teeth, and put down his card. It was a Seven of Hearts, and I am not going to mention its use in the game of Hearts because it is not all that important.

He then passed three cards to Leonard after a period of 'umming' and 'ahhing'.

Getting three pontoons in a row is a terribly small chance involving many multiplications that involve many different mathematical formulas I can't remember, so he can forget that. Five under 21 is a possibility, but since he had a seven, that gave him another possibility. Three sevens.

Three sevens was the ultimate draw. It would beat 21, pontoon and five 21 and under. And so, it was only a simple matter of drawing any two more cards and changing their image too.

So, in self-satisfaction, Bartimaeus drew himself two cards he didn't even look at. Then he luxuriously laid his three cards on the table and leaned back in his chair.

"I win," he said lazily, waving a hand in the air and killing a fly. "Pay up, mate."

There was silence from Charles's end. Bartimaeus sat up to admonish him with an impressive monologue detailing his fair right as a free entity using many long and delicious words, but was stopped by Wildberry's weird little smile.

"Well, you certainly have been lucky," he said, his words utterly calm. "Two Pontoons in two turns. And now you have another good hand. My, my, you must have good stars today."

"Um, technically I was never born under any stars," said Bartimaeus nervously. The man was even creeping him out.

"But of course, Mr Demon," said Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash-Simons III smoothly. "After all, what is the chance of getting three sevens when I happen to have three of my own?" He flipped his hand in front of Bartimaeus, who stared at the Sevens of Diamonds, Spades and Clubs.

"And, while on the subject, how you could have gotten three Sevens of Hearts?" Bartimaeus looked at his own cards, following the eerie man's serene point. He realized with a sinking feeling that he had forgotten to change the suits of his card coverings, and had ended up with a hand of three diabolical Sevens of Hearts.

"Damn," stated the djinni. Then he smiled his winning smile, put down his hand, and bolted. With Mr Leonard Harrison Zhujiang Gooseberry-and-Cream Balderdash Simons.

"Hey!" exclaimed Leonard, but Bartimaeus had upset the table in his face.

"Nyah-nyah! Sucker!" called back Bartimaeus, then halted. "Wait, that isn't classy enough. Um, er . . ." he paused for a moment in though.

"Um, hard luck, pilgrim! No, no," Charles had knocked the table 25 metres away in growing annoyance. "Er, ah . . . ah-ha! All your hopes have been dashed, mortal! Suffer like your forefathers! Bye-bye— I mean, farewell, Mud Crawler!"

Finally finding an insult he was happy with (I don't think it's as good as the real stuff, but this is a parody, after all), Bartimaeus turned to the hills alive with freedom! No, that did not come from a musical. Really. I swear.

Anyway, Bartimaeus turned to make a heroic dash for his life, but came face-to-face with the farmer trio that he had sent flying just a little while ago. They weren't exactly frothing with rage, but they weren't moving for him. Wildberry stalked up behind him, successfully trapping the djinni.

"Er, well, Mr Aries Henry Blueberry Rubbish XIII!" Bartimaeus tried to sound jovial. "What a surprise! Surely you won't hold a grudge for that unfortunate match!"

"I don't like cheaters," said the creepy Balderdash.

"It wasn't cheating, it was . . . it was . . . there should be a Latin or French word for it . . ." Bartimaeus said weakly, searching his memory banks for a posh word to rectify this situation.

"We don't like cheaters. I don't like those that steal part of my childhood." Mr Lion King Elizabeth Erdeberry Nonsense the who-cares-who-he-is-he-is-so-damned-scary pulled out his whistle with a flourish usually reserved for weapons of execution. "And you shall play a Penalty Game ala a character in a manga series that became an anime series that lost certain elements to make it acceptable for an age group the creator never originally intended. Now!"

He blew a puff on the whistle, which made an embarrassing squawk that brought to mind a person with congested nasal passages being kicked in the stomach. Bartimaeus fell into a protective crouching position when Leopard Edward Bluk Berry Baloney began the flourish, but stood back up after the whistle that could not possibly ever herald something dangerous that would connect to his position five days later.

"Hah! Now, I admit, I was a little regretful," said the djinni, his tone indicating he never did. "But now I don't think I should even—"

He was knocked down in a rush of black feathers.

"OK, what was—?"

Another flurry of feathers descended upon him, then dispersed.

"Hey, what were you trying to—" Bartimaeus cut his own self off. Perched on every available perching thing, except the farmers, were crows. Big crows, big crows, even bigger crows, some small ones that I suspect were only there to make the big crows look bigger, crows. Everywhere. And Mr Pertaining-to-lion's-spirit Name-of-a-Monarch Member-of-the-berry-family An-event-that-seems-ridiculous, the third of this name, was in control of them.

"My assistants will judge you," he said calmly, not a feather nor accident on his expensive coat. "And if they find you worthy, you will be pecked to an inch of your life, then leave you alone. If not, you will have to suffer their decree."

"Hey, don't I get a—" Bartimaeus's ever so intelligent speech was cut off again by every crow that had ever lived in the shire area (including the spirits of some dead ones that were more there to freak the onlookers out) diving upon him. His following comments included: "EW!" "Gross!" "GET AWAY FROM ME!" and lots and lots of swear words.

After about 8 minutes and 53 seconds (Leonard was being nice this time), the birds returned, leaving the battered and dirty Bartimaeus face down in the dirt. One bird swooped above Charles, dropping (nothing dirty) down the lavender teddy bear that had miraculously escaped being turned into something all too easily mistaken for a fancy dessert.

"Well?" Wildberry asked the crows as if addressing a crowd of loyal bloodthirsty followers (which is pretty similar, but they were hungry for eyeballs), tucking the bear with the long name in a pocket. "What do you think?"

There was a unanimous 'CAW!' from them all, which obviously meant something to him.

"Really? So soon?" Balderdash seemed slightly surprised, but shrugged. "Your decree then."

The crows all turned their beady eyes on the poor beaten entity, then glanced at the 'Ob' trio. They nodded, instantly understanding the way such characters do.

They picked up Bartimaeus, who hung limply, and dragged him to the cornfield. They got two poles, four long nails, straw, matches and binding. One bound Bartimaeus, dropped the straw around him, another got the nails, the other made a cross . . .

"Hey, what are those other two nails for?" Cob asked Rob, who had got them.

"Oops, I must have miscounted," shrugged Rob. "What the matches for, Bob?"

"Lighting my cigarette," said Bob, doing so. "Anyway, anyone got a hat?"

"Right here!" Cob gave him his own hat, which had never fitted his hair.

"Use a lot of straw, it'll make him itchy," said Rob, rubbing Bartimaeus's stone skin with a handful, then getting out some superglue and smearing around his shoulders and . . . other places.

"Right! Let's haul him up, boys!" Bob grabbed the djinni and, with the help of the others, raised the cross with their new scarecrow.

"That'll teach him to cheat," Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III said demurely.

"Right, boss!" chorused the farmer trio.

"Next time, he won't get caught . . ."

/Back to the 'present' time\

"All in all, not a good choice for me," said Bartimaeus disapprovingly. "I got all the screen time, yeah, but the ending wasn't . . . hey, aren't you listening?"

Kitty was laying all curled up cutely on the ground, cuddling Mr Tipple with Mr Buttons on her outstretched hand. Upon being kicked sharply in the ribs, she woke up with a shock, and yawned.

"Yeah, so what? If you hadn't been such a smart arse in the first place, you wouldn't have gotten into that mess," she said, standing up. "Well, too bad for you."

"Wait!" Bartimaeus leapt at her legs, nearly knocking the poor child over, and knocking the projector down into a wet muddy ditch. THAT WAS EXPENSIVE YOU LITTLE TURD!

"Sorry. Anyway, I can't stand being here," Bartimaeus said, losing his cool composure that had won so many fans for life that would likely be after my blood for putting the poor guy through this. "I'm free, but I make so many stupid decisions! And as you are the only one in this whole damn land that speaks without breathing in helium first, you _must_ help me!"

"Look, I've got to go to the Wizard to get myself home," Kitty said, as patiently as she could be after watching a very, very long and improperly placed flashback. "I don't need a bunch of hanger-ons to make the trip longer! I don't care if this is a parody or not, I can do this fine by myself."

"I can make it worth your while!" the djinni said desperately. "Come on, my conversations are worth twice as those of Harvard professors!" Not that it is a challenge. Wait, that wasn't made on experience. It's just like a bland recycled piece of opinion used to make up extra words. Wait, please don't go, I'LL MAKE IT UP TO YOU! I'M SORRY!

"No, I am not making an example of well-bred love-for-all-of-God's-creatures Commoner from myself! Get lost!" Kitty snapped.

"Fine," said Bartimaeus spitefully. "I'll go by myself. I don't need some human grub worm to help my high entity self to some solution to _my_ problem."

"Donald, cut the lights." The sun instantly dimmed, showing itself to be a poor sphere made of many light bulbs. Prompter Anna strode onto scene, dressed again in dark clothes. She stood in the middle of attention, glaring at djinni, human and sock puppets.

"Look," she said crisply. "We have a parody to run, and if you don't like it, tough. So unless you want your semblance of free-will withdrawn, stick to the script."

"No way!" said Kitty, Bartimaeus and Mr Buttons.

"I refuse to join with a demon!" said Kitty firmly.

"I refuse to join with a human!" said Bartimaeus in the same way, but cooler.

Stick to the script you ungrateful—

"And _you_," said Anna, turning to _me_ (so she wasn't a self insertion, by the—)

"Shut up! You've got to keep these characters in line better!" Anna told me, sternly. "If you can't control a bunch of pre-made characters, what makes you think you can control your own?"

Hey! Who told you I've been having problems with my characters?

"The fact that you are making a parody fanfic instead of working on it gives me a clue," Anna said dryly. "Now, all get back to work, or I'll have to haul you off with _this_!"

She pulled out a long handled hook with lumps all down its length and barbs in the hook end threateningly. We all get the point.

"Thank you. Lights, Donald. And for Lord's sake, _fix that sandbag rope, Tony!_" she stride off scene, and the sun comes back on.

"Alright," sighed Kitty. "You can come with me to the Wizard to see if he can get you some brains."

"Brains?" exclaimed Bartimaeus. "I've already got brains!"

Threatening hook-bringing sound from offstage

"I know, I know. This will all work out!" Bartimaeus shot at Anna. "What I mean is, I don't need any more brains. I just want to lose some."

"Eh?" went Kitty, taken back. Anna ran off to locate the script to check this.

"See, if I hadn't been so smart, I wouldn't have felt the need to prove it," Bartimaeus explained, standing up. "And if I wasn't smart at all, I wouldn't bother at all about morals and inhibitions, so I would have more fun. So, I'll see if the Wizard guy can remove my brains. Some of it, anyway."

"But . . . but . . . Kitty flustered. "How do you know he takes brains away?"

"Well, he's got to have a supplier, right?" Bartimaeus pointed out. "Should be no problem at all."

"Um, do you think that's right?" asked Kitty uncertainly.

"See! Exactly!" Bartimaeus exclaimed. "If I had a little less brains, I would never have to worry about that! I could decimate villages without a care! Destroy families without concern! I could make myself the most loathed and feared entity in the universe! And if I never had a brain!"

Kitty glanced from side to side as the awkward silence lengthened. Bartimaeus was still in his powerful pose like hoping for some fanart.

"Er, aren't you going to sing?" Kitty asked.

"What? No way!" shouted Bartimaeus. "An almighty entity like myself? Never!"

"Well . . . er . . . OK, said Kitty hesitantly. "Don't suppose you've ever heard of the Resistance . . ?"

"Resistance?" repeated Bartimaeus. "Like, a secret organization in an enemy-occupied country working to maintain hostilities unofficially after a formal capitulation?"

"Yes! I, uh, think," said Kitty eagerly and unsurely in turn.

"Yeah, but I'll forget that when I'm stupid," shrugged Bartimaeus. "So, which way is Pyrite City? Never mind! If we find it, I'll get my brains taken away. If not, I never needed them taken away anyway! Come on!"

And, with the air of swift writing, they walked off into the three o'clock sunset.

* * *

"And cut!" called Anna, as the human, djinni and sock puppets walked into a flat background. 

"Darn it!" Kitty growled, rubbing her face. "Who does the scheduling here?"

"Me," said Anna, dragging behind her the Hook of Bruised Souls. "And I don't get paid enough."

"That's all for me," said Bartimaeus, putting back on his cloak. "I'm beating it."

"No you're not," Anna stopped him. "You've got to do the disclaimers. I'm going home." With that, she walked off set, and there was the sound of a rapidly awoken motor and its subsequent dash.

"Why do I have to do the disclaimer?" whined Bartimaeus as everyone went home around him.

Aw, please? Pretty please? Pretty please with sugar on top?

"No," stated Bartimaeus. "I've been through enough today, and nothing you can do can make me—"

Oi, Leo buddy! Can I borrow your whistle again?

"OK, OK!" Bartimaeus squawked. "Just give me a moment!"

He checks the script again.

"Right," he said, then took a deep breath, and put on an authoritative voice. "The Author owns none of these: 'The Bartimaeus Trilogy' by Jonathan Stroud (good thing, too. I mean, what could she do with it? Turn it into a cartoon or something?); 'The Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum or its movies (again, would turn it into a cartoon); cows; football teams (that she would never touch, because they're nowhere near close to anime bishounen characters); a manga turned into an anime by 4Kids who censored it like demons and goes by the name of Yu-Gi-Oh (though she'd like to)— and all things connected to it (i.e. the Shadow Realm, 'It's Time to Duel' (that was half its lyrics up there, by the way), Penalty Game; Lewis Carroll's works, including his Jabberwocky (she might parody that next); a llama/alpaca (who cares?); iguanas; ostriches/emus (who cares again?); a magic 8 ball (probably break it); 'Best Loved Demonic Anti-Hero Competition' (I wiped the floor with their anti-stereotypical faces); 'The Day After Tomorrow' (the scenes of book burning made her ill); 'The Best Looking 1st Person Narrating Character Competition'; Anne Rice's Novels (I could wipe the floor with that almighty powerful good-looking soul-searching Vampire Lestat!); Blackjack; 'The Encyclopaedia of Games' by Barb Whiter; 'YMCA' by the Village People; road-kill remains of a dead kangaroo (which STINK); any Chinese Rivers; 'Pokemon' or its Berries; any Bible allusions (if you caught it); Harvard Professors and other stuff."

Bartimaeus took a huge breath again. "Right. Finally. Stupid parody works. I hate this."

Tony passed by, hauling a mass of iguanas on a leash. "You don't mean that, do you, man?" he gasped.

"Of course I do," said Bartimaeus firmly. "These things never work out. If I lie, then may I be struck by lightning!"

A cellophane covered light from above shifts its balance, and comes falling down. It smashes in a craze of electricity and glass, ten metres from where the djinni was standing.

"See!" he said triumphantly. "She just tried a situation pun, based on the similar sounding words 'lightning' and lighting', which she totally—"

A frayed rope snapped, and a sandbag came plummeting down on the djinni's head.

"I'd, like, call that divine retribution," said Tony, leading away the suddenly quiet iguanas.

* * *

Thank you all, and good night! Read and review, my lovelies! I SAID READ AND REVIEW, LEST YE WANT TO BE STRUCK BY MY DIVINE RETRIBUTION TOO! 


	5. If I Never had Kokoro

I had an excuse for not writing sooner, and here it is right here!

Here is an abbreviated version of my past few weeks, starting just before Christmas.

Kitty: You know you have a fanfic to write.

ROI (Rune-of-Iormangand AKA me): Can't write now, preparing for Woodford (Folk Festival starting Boxing Day)

:At Woodford:

Bartimaeus: Oi, shouldn't you work on the fanfic?

ROI: Can't write now, Woodford.

:Week after Woodford:

Jane Farrar: What are you doing? Get going and write that fanfic!

ROI: Can't write now, recovering from Woodford. And friend from previous town. So . . . much . . . breaking . . .

Characters from original work: Hello, there. What have we here? Aren't you supposed to be re-writing from the beginning?

ROI::Glances at original characters:

ROI: Can't write now, fanfic::Leaps for computer:

And that's basically my entire life. I am a heinous procrastinator, and you have every right to be mad. Just remember, you're on the wrong side of the computer screen, so HAH!

Hmm, shouldn't be acting so mean. I mean, I leave you all for such a long time! . . . Or, you haven't noticed. Never mind. I'll make it up to you. This is an extra long chapter (not intentionally . . .), and I have the beginning of a contest at the bottom. Or something.

Here are my latest review responses:

For chapter 4:

Bartyfarty: Thanks for the constructive criticism. I noticed that too. My on-scene off-scene were a bit awkward. I'll watch out for that.

The Thirteenth Councillor (what happened to the other twelve?): Thank you. I hope you read this in time.

Although you do offer an interesting alternative, I would like to see what snow would be like before deciding what to think of it. It's, hah, very rare here. A, hah, snowball's chance in hell. Hah. That . . . isn't funny. Oh well.

Gee, my instrument (flute) seems pretty well behaved compared to those examples. Just the occasional terrible embouchure, near fainting from lack of air, and misplaced wire. Mine just draws a lot of attention. Ever heard of a bent mouthpiece flute? No? Neither had I, but it really helps my wrist.

Thanks. I was worried that Bartimaeus's portrayal could have got many hard-core fans at my throat. But, apparently they didn't. Which is good, 'cause I can torture him some more . . . :laughs evilly:

Nothing better to do than nothing. See you later.

Chapter 3:

Clara Bell: Heh, heh, heh. Sure, can't have a Bartimaeus Trilogy fanfic without Bartimaeus. Or Nat. But Ptolemy? . . . I'm not sure; I could fit him in somewhere. Actually, I was thinking on adding some chapters that have nothing to do with the book or movie, just to give myself more things to do (I procrastinate _and_ multitask) and he could end up in one of those.

Some late Chapter 1:

Mariasha: 'Course. Gee, these guys have a lot of names. I'll have to assume any I don't recognize apply to Bartimaeus. There's only so much Egyptian I can memorize.

Onono: Thank you, thank you. Unfortunately, school is starting soon, so I'll be swept off my feet by work. Or so I'm told. Keep reading though; it all makes me happy.

Ever considered one of those sharpeners with an inbuilt container for the shavings? More practical, and easier to find.

Alright, I've got to get going. I've wasted enough time, no more beating around the—

Oh, wait. I mentioned a competition, didn't I?

It's not really a competition. It's just an invite to write down or construct your own lessons you got from the Bartimaeus Trilogy. It could be specific, or just about life in general. I'll post some of my own down the bottom. It'll tide us until I finish the next chapter, which looks like a doozy. That means hard, right?

Disclaimer is down the bottom. Warning is on top. Here we go!

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING FANFIC MAY PUT BELOVED CHARACTERS IN UNFAVOURABLE SITUATIONS! OR, IT MAY PUT UNBELOVED CHARACTERS IN FAVOURABLE SITUATIONS! OR, IT MAY PUT UNBELOVED CHACTERS IN UNFAVOURABLE CONDITIONS! TAKE YOU PICK!

WARNING! THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS CHARACTERS FROM OTHER GENRES ENTIRELY! PLEASE USE DISCRETION!

AND FINAL WARNING! THIS FIC HAS FREQUENT JAPANESE LANGUAGE! PATIENT GUIDENCE MAY BE RECOMMENDED, OR YOU CAN JUST ACCEPT MY TRANSLATIONS I ACCEPT FROM OTHER PEOPLE!

Are we done? Can we go?

If I Never Had Kokoro . . . Yes, it's Japanese.

The outcome of letting one's guard down for a moment in the presence of a djinni is well documented in this case. Kitty fell asleep.

So it was no surprise when the Scarecrow stand-in Bartimaeus decided to take this opportunity for some mischief.

"Hmm, a stroke here, a stroke there, and oh, this is a perfect shade," he muttered to himself as he worked. "My, even Jabor would find this petty."

There was a well-placed caw from a well-placed crow just then, and Kitty jolted awake, staring around blearily.

"Good morning, human person that will take me to Pyrite City," said Bartimaeus politely. "Sleep well?"

The only answer Kitty could have made was a grunt. "Didn't you sleep?" she asked, feeling by the djinni's polite act something was definitely wrong.

"Oh, no. See, high entities like myself don't need sleep, and, on the other hand, neither do Scarecrows," Bartimaeus pointed out.

"Oh, right," said Kitty, rubbing her eyes, and frowning at the smudge this caused.

"Is there anything to eat?" Bartimaeus said, trying to give a prompt since Anna was away with a cough and two essays. "I am never hungry," he went on. "Because in one case I am the djinni that is practically self sustaining (and can absorb life-force from other creatures) and in another I am a Scarecrow who only has a painted on mouth I cannot open unless I want my stuffing to fall out and my head to form in the shape of a withered vegetable. However, there's bound to be civilisation nearby. You don't find too much unspoiled wilderness without finding a bunch of humans/Munchkins to spoil it."

Kitty had hardly listened to this. She stood up clumsily (try sleeping on a flat, damp ground for a while and see how you feel) and looked around.

"Is there some water around?" she said between yawns.

"Whatever would you need water for?" Bartimaeus asked politely.

"To wash and bathe and stuff," Kitty mumbled, heading in a random direction. You know, the Munchkins gave Dorothy food. I must have forgotten. Sorry about that, Kitty dear.

"Yeah, right," she muttered, following a sound that could either be a very deep and quiet gossip meeting or running water.

"It must be inconvenient to be a human," mused Bartimaeus. "For you must sleep and eat and drink. However, all of that must make you stupid, so it's good enough for you."

Kitty shuffled to where what could be a row of cornflowers blowing in the wind seen by very blurry eyes or a running water, and knelt down.

"Careful not to get your knees muddy," suggested Bartimaeus calmly.

Kitty paused. The tone of this remark and its placement only meant one thing. Bartimaeus had done something bad. And, judging by its tone and placement, it was on par of killing her parents.

Her blanching as she looked into the water could be interpreted as her discovery of a large, slimy, poisonous foot-long slug in the water, or that she discovered what was on par of killing her parents.

"BARTIMAEUS!" she screamed, standing up from the edge and stomping over to the grinning djinni. "How could you have done this?"

"I thought it looked nice!" said Bartimaeus angelically. "And I happened to have plenty of woman's cosmetics on me. Don't ask why."

Kitty, with her eyelids coated liberally with sky blue eye shadow, her eyelashes thickened like black cream with mascara, her cheeks green with blush not meant for her species and lips red like the sickest most unlovable shade of candy red, growled. Then she, quite reasonably, pounded Bartimaeus's head into the ground.

"DON'T" :Bang: "EVER!" :Bong: "DO!" :Dong: "THAT!" :Sound of hollow head hitting concealed rock: "AGAIN!" She finished with driving his head one-and-a-half feet underground, because she had cooled down just the slightest.

Striding to the water like she was the best advocate for Children's, Woman's, Commoner's and Canon Pairing's Rights, Kitty was just about to wash off the terrible makeup when . . .

"You know," said Bartimaeus, pulling his head out of the dirt. "Unless you do have all of that stuff on, you're never going to attract anyone but a weasel."

Perhaps not the most cunning thing her could say, but it got Kitty chasing after him again.

-XXX-

"Have you noticed," pondered Mr Tipple, "that we don't get many lines any more?"

"No, you fool, MOVE THE BLUE! You can get a five— no, no, NOT A CHAIN OF SEVEN!" Mr Buttons screamed in his sleep. They had been both left behind.

"And being left behind," Mr Tipple reflected, "could be just a convenience to avoid having us any input in the following events."

"NOOOO! GARY BEAT ME AGAIN!" howled Mr Buttons.

"Having two OCs stand in as Toto could make manipulation of the plot quite difficult," mused Mr Tipple. "But apparently we still are of some importance, since focus is on us right now.

"And I'm on Normal! OH THE HUMILIATION!" wailed Mr Buttons.

Gee, how did you know that?

"Well, the two Original characters are a fair bit away now," explained Mr Tipple. "And you're using a different speaking verb for our every line."

Hang on a moment, I want to try something. HEARTS!

"NO! YOU BASTARD, YOU GAVE ME THE QUEEN OF SPADES!" screamed Mr Buttons. "I DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER SPADES! NOOOO! SOMEBODY PLAY THE ACE OR KING!"

"You really do say a lot about cards," pointed out Mr Tipple reproachfully.

Sorry. There was Yu-Gi-Oh, there was Blackjack, and there is Hearts. That's the point of a parody story: you can have a lot of allusions from your own life.

"Well, do you think we could have another shout from Mr Button's nightmare before returning to Dorothy and the Scarecrow?" hinted Mr Tipple. "We'll catch up. Probably thanks to that misplaced Football team from last chapter."

OK then.

"HA HAAA! TAKE THAT! AND THAT! AND— OH MY GOD! HE SHOT THE MOON! NOOOO!"

-XXX-

Djinn have amazing endurance as well as power, and as a particularly good example of this, Bartimaeus was no exception. But half the fun of escaping was being chased, and if he left Kitty behind and ended up in the Winkles country (the race that live in the country of the West you illiterate ignorant culture-blind simps!) that would underscore his elation. So he stayed just the slightest bit in front of the enraged Kitty.

"You imp! You imp! You imp!"

"I'm a djinni, darling. Do you want me to prove it?"

"If you do something like that again, I swear—"

"HA-HA HA HAAAAH!"

"WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT!"

"The thought that a little human like you could do anything to harm me! You are but a measly mortal human, and I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty and Serpent of the Silver Plumes! I am Bart—"

WHAM! That was the way to explain the following sound, but since I still don't have Japanese kana on this computer, I can only suggest that you hear it as a comical crash into a drum kit that broke half a xylophone. Ooh, I think that was a melodic minor!

-XXX-

"Actually, the closest thing to that would be an augmented fifth of some sort," said Mr Tipple.

"No, you're a— OH MY GOD! Stop! Stop! I'M LOSING EVERY TRICK!" screamed Mr Buttons.

Meanwhile, as we leave the djinni to writhe in agony and the sock puppets to patiently wait for more lines or nightmare about card games, a very familiar face was seen skulking around the woods.

Yes, dressed today in a fantastic but oh-so-impractical ensemble of black evening dress, black evening gloves, black silk scarf and closed-in high heels (so she at least had some consideration) was our Wicked Witch of the West for the story, the one, the only . . . yeah, yeah, it's Jane Farrar.

Sorry. I couldn't cross stories by having someone cool like, say, Haruko from FLCL be the witch, or I'd be exchanging all the characters for their cross-genre equivalents. Like, Susan of the Discworld replacing Kitty who replaced Dorothy, although she would be even more of an opposite. Or making Gourry Gabriev from the Slayers the Scarecrow, even though he wouldn't be as fun to make fun of as Bartimaeus. Or making Draco Malfoy the Tin Man instead of the one who will be coming up. Or making Rincewind from Discworld the Cowardly Lion! Hey, that sounds good!

"QUIET!" screamed Jane Farrar. "You're supposed to be paying attention on me. Not on random figments from your la-la Fairyworld!"

My la-la Fairyworld, do you say?

A few seconds later a rift opens in the fabric of time, space and realities. Two people fall out of it. One is a teenage girl with hair to remind one of a Goth origin or a bleached dandelion with a streak of black from 12 to 2 o'clock. The other is a heavily muscled barbarian named who, after a brief moment of surprise, brings out his sword, Kring, and bellows his strength.

"Hrun! No need to shout, she's right in front of you!" said the sword in a sword's voice, which could be like a claw being scraped across glass or a silk handkerchief being sliced by scissors. Did I mention it was a talking sword? Nah, it's not as fascinating as you think. Damn stubborn thing.

The girl glances around, and glares at Jane. Her glare is enough to equal that of her grandfather's. He has quite a famous name. He has quite a prosperous profession. Both are Death.

Another rift opens, dropping its occupant face first onto the ground. He hauls his swordsman self out of the ground, shaking his long blonde hair to get the dirt out. Then he stands and stares.

"Lina?" Gourry Gabriev questions, then shakes his head. "Must have been the Dragon Wine Soufflé."

And since he isn't much fun, I flick him back, and let two more people drop out.

"Damn! Why do I have to do this?" demands Zelgadis Greywords, a blue skinned human/brau demon/golem chimera, which makes him made of rock with hair like wire and a very distrusting personality. This isn't really the place for depressing explanations, so just take him as a one-shot character.

"Because it's fun!" said Xellos, a man with eyes usually kept tightly shut, purple hair cut neatly above his shoulders, and an agenda made no less mysterious than the reason he calls himself 'the Mysterious Priest'. Huh, that's odd. Normally I would imagine him to say, "That is a secret" or something.

"But I can't," he says.

Why?

"Sore wa himitsu desu!" he says in that teeth-grinding way of his.

"Why did you have to bring all these freak shows here?" asks Jane, not impressed.

"Freak shows?" growls Zelgadis.

"Hey, I think there's someone missing . . ." said Susan, looking around.

A growl in the distance . . .

"Look, if you're trying to impress me, getting a lot of stupid ugly barbarians isn't going to cut it," Jane hissed.

An angry growl . . .

"Hey, I not . . ." Hrun paused in thought. An act that would take him a few minutes.

An angry growl coming closer . . .

"So get your butts out of here!" spat Jane to the assemblage.

"I'm afraid I don't want to do that," stated Susan firmly.

The growl increases into almost a snarl . . .

"And what happened to you? Did you fall in a—" Jane stopped very abruptly as Zelgadis levelled a sword at her face.

The snarl is almost here . . .

"You might want to step away, Miss Jane," suggested Xellos, in a way that would have no-one so much as consider that he was capable of mass genocide. "For Mr Zelgadis isn't the only thing that is threatening injury.

The snarl escalated into a roar and there, heralded by a pitiless glow, came thundering into the clearing with a scream that sounded just like—

"Itadaki— . . . MAMMOTH!"

A Vespa 180 SS.

And on it, with absolutely no consideration for safety or speed limits, Haruko Haruhara— or Raharu, wielding her vintage Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar (with modifications) came screaming. There are no metaphors in this.

With little to no concern, she slammed Jane with the guitar, ran over Hrun, zipped past Susan, and smashed into Zelgadis. He came out the better. All he got was a little winded and a skid mark on his white cape. Susan can be missed by anyone thanks to her ability to have herself 'disappear', just by making her unnoticeable (though whether that is a trademark of one of the Death profession or just a skill of one of her personality I'm not sure). Hrun survived just because he had stood up to avalanches before, but Haruko in full rage on his Vespa is like nothing he'd ever experience again.

"KUSO! I just fixed it!" howled Haruko. "Damn it! Oh, hang on," she suddenly paused, through off her helmet to reveal pink hair and yellow eyes. "I think I've got something to fix it."

All those that were capable of watching, Susan, Xellos, to some extent Zelgadis, watched as she pulled out a box from beneath the seat, opened the lid, pulled out a spanner and . . . what appeared to be a Gundam figurine. I'm still not kidding.

Without care, she inserted the figurine into a slot somewhere in the underbelly of the machine, and stood it up.

"Right, it should be enough to get me back home," Haruko said, wiping away some sweat from her yellow eyes with a gloved hand. "As soon as—"

The Vespa let out a large bang, then smoked.

"As soon as I solve that problem," she said, sitting down to pull out another box of Gundam figurines and start assembling them. "Ara? Where'd that part come from?"

"She's not dead," said Susan calmly, referring to Jane Farrar, who I really should have been focusing on instead of a bunch of crossover characters. Sorry, my story, my Fairyland la-la world. Think before you insult the author.

Neither of the still conscious ones paid any mind.

"Damn it, the new models never fly like the old ones!" exclaimed Haruko in frustration as the Vespa threatened to blow up in her face.

"Oh well, looks like I'm not needed here," shrugged Xellos, disappearing in black smoke classily, not like Jane Farrar, who would near choke us with her immense clouds of pink fog. You just can't get these girl characters to play down! I mean, Kitty is great; she's really OK with just a bit of subtle makeup and entrances (asides from a falling house), and Mrs Underwood doesn't really count. But Jane, geez, she wanted me to call her Miss Farrar! She's the one that needs the heart, but I already chose—

"Ahem," said Beastmaster Xellos politely, a name he did not get for interrupting politely I can tell you (but little else, or that'll spoil the plot). "Shouldn't you be moving on now?"

Right. Sorry, Sir.

We return to the relevant characters.

"Hey, wait! What about—" Zelgadis tried to ask, picking himself up from the ground, but was cut off by the impatient scene ch—

-XXX-

Kitty had escaped any injury by smashing into Bartimaeus as he had suddenly come to a stop, leaving her only a bit winded and surprised, and Bartimaeus an unidentifiable mass. And mess. He was a mess of mass. Ooo, that leaves a good thought in your head.

As Kitty attempted to push herself up from the spongy grey mass, she looked for what Bartimaeus had run into, and found . . . nothing. There were some trees shaking their incredibly knuckled fist at them, but they were unlikely culprits because Bartimaeus had crashed into the space between them.

There was also a stretch of rock, but that was on the other side of a large, strangely placed clearing. This clearing seemed a good size for a volleyball court but a bad size for a cricket field, and was all obscured by some sort of white mist. Kitty found herself wishing for Anne, or Stanley. Less likely Stanley.

Suddenly Bartimaeus reformed with the sound of a Wellington boot pulled out of deep mud. At first he was the straw covered gargoyle I inflicted on him. His face was pressed against an invisible surface, then his tongue popped out. Where his unpleasantly textured tongue touched this obstruction it glowed a quiet-but-threatening-to-turn-you-into-ash blue. Then there was the threatened and sudden jolt, and he dissolved in curls of grey substance once again, making Kitty jump back with a squeal.

"'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, wot's all this then?" came a heavily emphasised English bobby (policemen, for those culture-blind simps that remained! Oh, wait, don't go! I was only kidding! I love you all!) accent. "Oi reckon dere's some trespassin' goin' on 'ere!"

"Erm, well, we never knew this was here," said Kitty, uncertainly looking from side to side. As far as she could see, there was nothing but a forest clearing, trees, some furry forest dweller stuff, and a couple of my crows. I swapped Mr Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III a pink ribbon (for his bear Mr Leonard Harrison Zhujiang Gooseberry-and-Cream Balderdash Simons, of course) for some of them. They stand in as my retribution until I find something else.

"That ain't an excuse!" said the Pommy Policeman accent, sounding closer now.

"Sorry, I mean, it wasn't my fault, you guys . . ." Kitty trailed off as the origin of the accent came into view just beyond the obstruction.

"Wot choo starin' at?" it demanded, obviously faking the accent. It wasn't just the terribly stereotypical English Peeler costume. It was the fact that it was a mass of eyes and tentacles on a pivot above three legs all over in the colour of mustard squashed into said uniform. A Triloid from the first book, if I parody correctly.

"Er . . ." went Kitty helplessly. She had forgotten to pick up her elemental orbs from the shop before. There was that pure silver pendant she had got from Jakob's grandmother, but this takes place just a bit before 'The Golem's Eye', so she doesn't know its use. Luckily, there was a distraction to prevent her from answering.

"There's a hole in my bucket, my bucket, my— Lord, who brought the disfigured action figures?" Bartimaeus asked, finally coming to. "And who made that dashing uniform for you? I must go and kill them."

The Triloid regarded the re-builder of the walls of Uruk, Karnak and Prague. "I don't think we ordered taffeta," he said, slowly, without the accent. "Wot choo want then?"

"What's in there?" Kitty asked bluntly, realising the oddness of a UFO shaped absence in the forest area.

"Wot? That?" the Triloid glanced behind itself. "Why, that's nothing. And if you don't move away from it, Oi'll be forced to kill you."

"I demand to speak to your superior!" said the taffeta, rising angrily. "Right now!"

The Triloid raised an . . . an eyelid or four. "If that's wot choo want, that's wot choo'll get," it shrugged . . . a leg. "Just be a minnit."

It wandered off into obscurity. Kitty touched the obstruction, which felt like it could be domed shape, and drew things with the blue light that was produced. Bartimaeus watched this interestedly, well, as interestedly as a tower of grey slime can communicate.

The Triloid came suddenly into view just in front of her, and she stumbled back in shock. Bartimaeus snorted, well, showed some sort of contempt, until when the other figure came into view.

The tower of what looked like an incredibly smooth kind of material crashed to the ground.

"F-Farquarl?" it stuttered. "What are you doing here?"

The cook— what looked like a cook anyway — raised a fully formed eyebrow. "I don't remember meeting any free willed columns of mucus of late," he stated.

Bartimaeus growled, and reformed into the form of a brown-skinned Egyptian boy we know was named Ptolemy.

"Oh! Bartimaeus!" said the cook, recognising him with greasy menacing charm. "So it is you! How have you been? I haven't seen you in such a long time!"

"Er, yeah, funny that," Bartimaeus said, trying a chuckle. "What with me being on the road for such a while and you, well, not."

Farquarl's smile did not flicker. "Very well then. If you would like to state both names and purposes, I would like to flatten you both."

"Hey, wait a minute!" Kitty said, waving irately to draw attention back to her. "I'm not with him! I just—"

"OK then!" interrupted Farquarl brightly. "Now that is settled, just wait, and I'll see if my master can come and see you!"

"Oi, hang on," Bartimaeus made a terrible face to get attention on him, and blow me if he failed! The Triloid advanced on him with scythes on claws, and Farquarl whipped up a handy . . . meat tenderiser. Don't ask. Bartimaeus leapt back with a squeal, then attempted an intimidating stance before striking . . . the dome again, which glowed blue again, and hurled him as a charcoaly goop out of sight.

"Now, if you just wait a minnit, missy, Oi'll go get me master," said the Triloid, tipping its hat. It then went out of sight on whirling legs.

"I'll be back soon, miss," said Farquarl politely, tipping his chef's hat too. "But before I do, I'd go several shades darker, darling. That red is bringing out your paleness." He too, left, before Kitty could spit poison on him.

-XXX-

The Triloid whirred itself into the gloom, which suddenly turned into a very defined complex that stood for a house in this profession.

It whirred to the door, it whirred down the hall, and it took the wrong turn left for the thirteenth time in its service. It could not be said he did so on purpose, because it was the bathroom.

Correcting its mistake, it whirred up two flights of stairs and down two hallways to come to a room. A very enclosed room. A room enclosed with many, many books.

Now it wasn't enclosed by dusty books. Nor by books stacked untidily. It was simply enclosed by many shelves of neat, white covered books all marked with individual sets of numbers, so it very much destroyed the romantic view of a room enclosed by many books. I was trying to sort of delay saying that. Sorry.

Anyway, in this room full of unromantic books, there was a person. A person who, in general terms, would be unromantic as well, but in the way that he has been handled and influenced had an opposite effect on him in the eyes of many who aren't in this story but are reading it. Hello out there! Yes, I know what you're doing! Stop trying to multitask for once!

— "Hypocrite," said Mr Buttons groggily from where he was abandoned.

"Shut up," I reply, forcing him back to sleep where he can nightmare about 'The Lands Of Lore'. —

Anyway (gee, I started two paragraphs with that), the Triloid came up to this person, and tapped it on the shoulder. With the shout of one that had been engaged in the breakdown of many difficult texts coming to in the middle of a cyclone, he bumped half his work onto the ground. Automatically reaching to pick it up, he stopped himself from this, and ordered the poor spirit to do the menial chore himself.

"Yes, Oi Master," sighed the Triloid, trying to remember how to manipulate its own essence into something like fingers.

"Master?" asked Farquarl, as he caught up. "We have a visitor."

"A visitor? Do you mean another assault of foliots?" inquired the 'master' suspiciously.

"Damn bones, can never get enough of them!"

"That was 'guests', Sir," said Farquarl. "I mean, we happen to have a person loitering on our edges asking to come in. A girl."

"Is it—?" his master asked eagerly but annoyingly shortly.

"Screw the fingernails."

"No, though I daresay this one is a damn sight better," muttered Farquarl, then returned to normal volume. "I'm afraid I don't recognise this one."

"Mmm," said the person, sounding somewhat disappointed. "Oh well. I'll go and check them out myself, then."

"Got it! Oh, damn. Forgot the stupid wrist!"

"Good idea then, sir," said Farquarl diligently, fingering a dangerous toasting fork behind his back.

"Tumber, forget about the papers. Get my hat and accompany me to the edge," the master ordered.

"I GOT IT! I GOT IT! Woo! Fear my digits! I— what, already, sir?" whined the Triloid, its newly created hand fingering the air.

"Yes. Unless you want to speak to my master," the master under the threatened master threatened.

"IT WAS ABOUT KITTENS!" howled Tumber.

-XXX-

"So, who is this mysterious master? Would he be that who replaces the Tin Man? Would he be wanting a heart? What is Jane Farrar planning? And what did his master do to the Triloid to make it so afraid? All these questions, except possibly the one about the kittens, will be answered in the following story."

"No, you're answered in the following . . . AHHH! NOOOO! THE WRAITHS ARE ATTACKING! HAND OF FATE, HAND OF FATE!"

-XXX-

After using her M4D /\/\4G1K 5KILLZ, Jane Farrar was just able to haul herself up, her bones grinding like a . . . bone grinder? Something like that. Anyway, all my off-topic minions had been taken care of. Susan had gone home using her L337 D347/-/ 5KILLZ, Hrun was currently raiding the treasury (there goes the backdrops) and trying to seduce a couple of maidens (there goes our makeup crew), and Zelgadis was having coffee and avoiding Xellos, who was annoying the crew. Haruko had gone to search for better parts, which I wish her good luck for, because I doubt that if there are any scooter stores in the area that aren't for old people, they would be able to serve her.

"DARN IT! More attention is being paid on those main characters and Fairyland characters than me!" Jane cursed, hauling herself on his feet. You better watch yourself, girly. My 'la-la magic powers' may be drained for now, but I still kept a few Jabberwockies from last chapter!

"OK, OK," Jane said, harassed, then started to limp her way into the woods.

"Right. All I have to do is find that scrawny brat and scare her out of those shoes," she said to herself. "It should be no problem at all, for I know how to intimidate her so that she will—"

Careful with the monologues! I heard the Disclaimer Demons escaped around here!

"Whatever," grumbled Jane. "I'll just go find that skinny girl with . . . with . . . with my mad magic skills and . . . and . . . do evil stuff!"

What a day for Anna to take off . . .

"THE IRON GRAZER STOLE MY ARMOUR! THE JELLYFISH ARE ATTACKING! WHY DIDN'T I CHOOSE AK'SHEL?"

Jane Farrar leapt into a grove of trees in fright, then was thrown out by an angry group of cedars that had been trying to discuss cold fusion until she offended them with her herbal shampoo. After picking up her still dignified face from the dirt, she looked around for the source of the unholy noise.

"DAMN YOU, YOU GIANT SLUG!"

"What the hell is that?" demanded Jane, the type of person who would rather something didn't exist unless it had her full approval. And she was about to stress that fact.

"GAMES OVERLOAD! GAMES OVERLOAD! OVERLOAD! MUST CHANGE GENRES!"

She stalked, stealthily and quietly (yes, I know they mean about the same thing), in the search for the unwanted noise. This wasn't very hard, because the trees were trying to move away from it as fast they could. Which made a snail look wild and reckless.

"WHY MUST IT BE IN QUARTETS!"

So in a series of further sneaky movements and demands, which I don't feel like making another paragraph of, Jane came to a clearing. There, between the foliage of the flinching trees, she saw two colours that were rare to find naturally. Purple and green.

Well, of course green was a natural enough colour in this shade. And purple would be completely normal around a lavender, lilac bush or jacaranda tree. Alright, alright, let's just say she played on a hunch that something was odd.

"Something is odd," she states to clear that up. "Didn't that . . . that . . . girl have sock puppets like that? Meaning . . ." she pauses for drama.

Speed it up!

"Meaning that kitty brat is in there!" Jane exclaimed in frustration. "Geez! Can't I work a little talent into this meaningless scrap of data?"

I wonder how Haruko is doing . . .

"Oh, hi! We were just talking about you!" came a voice to thankfully stop the stand off.

"TORTALL! TORTALL! WHY IS IT ALL ABOUT TORTALL!"

"Eh?" went Jane understandably, staring at the forgotten sock puppets.

"Look, Mr Buttons! It's that Malicious Magician, Jane Farrar!" said the purple sock puppet cheerfully. We already knew that paragraphs ago, but because these are such under appreciated characters, we'll let this pass.

Jane gave a relieved sigh. "Finally!"

I was referring to the sock puppets, not you. Get on with it, lest I call out a Monty Python reference.

"Fine, fine," sighed Jane in annoyance. "What, sock puppets in a forest? I must be dreaming . . ." she said with no enthusiasm. I don't blame her.

"Never mind, dear," said Mr Tipple kindly. "We'll just pretend we're dreams for you."

"I WANT EMELAN, DAMMIT!" Right on, brother!

"Wait . . . the little brat's sock puppets?" Jane repeated, as a thought suddenly landed like a telephone pole on her head (ouch). "Most likely her prized childhood possessions! And if I have them . . ." an evil, evil smirk grew from her face like bamboo. You know, all fast and steady and woody and stuff. With branches. Produced from her slight genetic skin imperfections she must cure with our patented solution of moisturiser, bitter lime juice and liquid sensors as seen in Eion Colfer's "The Supernaturalist"! Send only 17 easy payments of $9.98 SWE to:

Alleyway

Next to the busker on Thursdays

Between Mall and Central Station

—And we may return you feelings of self-esteem and confidence, although it's hardly likely.

"SHUT UP!" screamed Jane.

Or, take the alternative options, and just listen to a lot of Linkin Park and non-funny songs of Eminem and you will be so depressed your skin will be the least of your worries! Please walk this way—

"If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need—"

"Ahem," Mr Tipple coughed, before Jane Farrar could cross the forbidden line of Narrator Upstaging (again). "I have a feeling that this would be a good time to go back to the action?"

Right, right. One more from Mr Buttons then.

"Hey, wait a minute, I didn't illustrate my plan well enough!" Jane protested.

Plan? HAH! This is what I excuse as a plan!

"WHY ALANNA? DAINE IS MORE INTERESTING!"

-XXX-

Kitty was still waiting by the dome, but now was trying to break it with her shoulder. The blue glow thickened and sparked, but it did her no harm. Bartimaeus still hadn't returned, but she didn't care about that.

"Stupid—" –slam-- "bloody—" –Slam-- "Useless—" –Slam!-- "Impractical—" --SLAM!-- "Annoying—" --SLAM!-- "POWER BLUE DOME!"

"Actually, it's electric blue," said somebody suddenly, out of view. Kitty stopped slamming immediately (in the case when you need to break down a door, do not slam it with your shoulder as seen in cop dramas. Using your leg to kick it down is stronger and safer, although you won't come rushing into the room as dramatically as you would like. Sorry, just had to mention that). It sounded familiar . . .

"Now, what are you doing banging on my dome?" asked the seeker and stealer of hearts, the summoner of djinn, the youngest Minister in history. You know him, some love him, some hate him, some are indifferent, some pair him with Jane Farrar, some with Kitty, a rare few with Bartimaeus, he had a dramatic beginning and a dramatic end, it's . . .

The boy, just a bit younger than Kitty, leaned out of the dome as if it was a screen of water. He had on a hat strangely shaped and position like a funnel, but black. He scrutinized Kitty.

"I don't remember ordering one of these," said the Tin Man stand-in, Nathaniel.

/Interlude No. 1/

ORANGE no SLIDE utsusu sora

(Slide of Orange, the sky that it reflects)

SPONGE no PRIDE burasakete

(Pride of Sponge, being dangled)

SPIDER

Kike totta sono yokan wa

(The apprehension that was caught alive)

Kakusanakuta tte ii n da

(It's okay even if I don't hide it)

Iro no tsuita yume mitai na

(I want to have colored dreams)

Ride on Shooting Star

Kokoro no koe de sandanjû no yô ni

With the voice of my heart, like a shotgun

Utai tsutzuketa

I kept on singing

/Right . . . back to the written work/

"One of what?" shouted Kitty, with good reason. I'm never going to define it, you'll just have to figure it out for yourself, because I am not raising this rating. Hah, you probably know it now.

"I won't be twenty-one for a while now," mused Nathaniel, extending the joke for too long now.

Kitty grabbed him by his exuberant— hang on, that means enthusiastic! Let me repair that:

Kitty grabbed him by his expansive— damn, that means big. Not quite what I'm going for. Third time lucky:

Kitty grabbed him by his exaggerated collar (good enough) before he was able to retreat inside the dome.

"I AM NOT YOUR BIRTHDAY GIFT!" she shouted. "Now, tell me what is in there, and if there is food, right now."

Nathaniel tried to regain his air of experience-won confidence, but the hungry Kitty put a stop to that sharply.

"Listen you over-dressed over-achiever," she hissed, giving him the full menace of a short-tempered Resistance member. "I am tired, hungry, and thirsty, and if you do not tell me where there is bed, food and bath, I will strangle you with your stupid red handkerchief."

"It's burgundy . . ." muttered Nathaniel unhappily, fingering it. Then his eyes dropped to Kitty's legs that, on the whole, were not very interesting in this kind of genre, but he was actually looking at the Mercenary's boots with nothing else on his mind (strange, strange child).

". . . Are those . . . those . . ." he stuttered worriedly. "Er, I think you should come inside."

He offered his hand, which, at this stage, at least, Kitty would never accept. Instead she marched self-righteously through the dome like it was water, wait, I used that metaphor several paragraphs before. Ahem: through the dome like it was a curtain, but it wasn't clingy or floral . . . Darn, must plan this better next time. Third time lucky: through the dome like it wasn't there . . . Oh, that is so damn stereotypical!

"Like rice," said Kitty, walking through. "Dry rice."

Wow, you are hungry.

"Of course I am!" Kitty snapped. "Since you keep switching from movie to book, you forget the little details LIKE GETTING ME LUNCH!"

Sorry, sorry, planning is not my forte . . .

Much too hungry and impatient to continue berating Nathaniel, the djinn and the poor unorganised author, Kitty strode through the gloom with the certainty only one with an empty belly can hold.

"Hey, excuse me," Nathaniel hurried after her, nearly tripping in his terribly impractical shoes. "Hey, wait! Could you— would you—?"

"Save the Seuss 'til after breakfast," snapped Kitty, finding the complex suddenly looming out of the shadows. She didn't pay it any mind, but I thought it would be worth a mention.

Kitty flung open the door, which was not supposed to open to anyone not an occupant of the house, and strode down the posh hallway in search of the kitchen.

"Don't take the fifth door on the left!" called the Triloid. "That's the master's bathroom."

Kitty steered clear just in time, and ended up instead in what could be classified as a living room. The only thing opposing this idea was that a 'living room' involved the use of 'living', and this one seemed to be as lively as the waiting hall of a morgue.

Kitty finally stopped, realising she had just barged into the incredibly expensive house of a stranger who had specifically designed it to be un-barge-er-in-able. Sorry, I couldn't think of a better word. I'm afraid my vocabulary is rather 'tabula rasa' at the moment.

She stepped off the carpet, looking down at her feet. "Sorry, should I take off my shoes?" They had already tracked seven metres of mud up the white tiles of the hall and white fabric of the carpet.

"Er, no. My servants will take care of that," Nathaniel said, directing the poor Triloid to its task.

"But, er, Master?" questioned the Triloid. "We don't have a vacuum cleaner."

"Oh. Right then. Instead, I'll—" Nathaniel suddenly cut himself off, as if remembering something or changing his mind. "No. Do it. Swallow it if you have to."

"What?" squeaked the Triloid. "But I don't have a stomach or anything! You can't just rustle up a digestive system like a suit! It takes time and effort, not to mention a degree in biology . . ." It trailed off unhappily, sighed, and started work on elongating its mouth.

"Do you have anything to eat?" Kitty demanded, back on task. "I am starving. And if you don't give me food, I'll eat those decorative lilies in that pot over there."

"Um, those are fake," pointed out Nathaniel, having lost control of this situation.

"What? Fine. I'll just have fruit!" Kitty grabbed an apple of a suspiciously shiny arrangement.

"Wait! Don't eat those!" exclaimed Nathaniel.

"Why? Oh, I bet it's wax," said Kitty, glaring at it. "Never mind. I don't care," she said, biting into it anyway.

"Actually, those are sprayed with furniture polish," pointed out Farquarl. "Good quality, but it only comes in these little spray cylinder things that aren't flammable enough to kill your master in bed."

"Huh?" went Nathaniel, as Kitty spat out her mouthful in front of the Triloid.

"Damn it! I can never the right amount of intestines!" cursed this Triloid.

As if Nathaniel hadn't been stressed enough, there came at that moment a call from upstairs.

"APPRENTICE!"

Nathaniel squeaked out a pansy curse in Czech. It could be said the glaze on the fruit cracked at the tone of the descending newcomer.

"Apprentice! I check your room, and you are not there. How can you expect to amount to anything if you cannot stay up sixteen hours without sleep or an English word?"

The lilies even wilted, and they were half plastic.

"And only one of your djinn are cursing your name! How can you expect to inspire fear into the enemies if you can't get loathing from your servants? Well, apprentice? What have you got to say for yourself?"

And by about the time a glass cabinet's front caved in, there stood the master of the master of the djinn. Jessica Whitwell!

-XXX-

"This plot makes no sense," said Mr Tipple, as Jane Farrar was carrying him through the forest. "Here we have Nathaniel under the tutelage of Ms Whitwell, and he has not his magician's name yet, and then we have Farquarl, that Triloid and Kitty!"

"Yeah," agreed Mr Buttons. "YOU SCREWED UP THE PLOT BIG TIME!"

Look, basically I'm having all the characters I need to fill in the necessary roles set to succour to Kitty's knowledge just before 'The Golem's Eye', because any other time would be near impossible and my favourite book is 'The Amulet of Samarkand'. And being a parody it would only need that I merge the purpose of my parody with the characters while keeping it attached to original storyline so it won't be Alternate Universe and I am trying to keep in mind coming events (as well as the end). Besides, all this stuff is just a game to me!

"A game, huh? WELL, YOU'RE PLAYING IT LIKE A—"

Switch back to game genre!

"AHHHH! MY WISPS ARE ATTACKING ME!"

"Why do I feel so unimportant?" sighed Jane.

-XXX-

"Er, good morning, ma'am," said Nathaniel nervously, sweeping back his sweaty hair with his just as sweaty hand.

"It's afternoon, apprentice," said Ms Whitwell crisply (the fruit peeled itself). "Why aren't you studying in a stuffy room with bad light?"

"Well, um, you see, ma'am," Nathaniel babbled, which Kitty would have found very entertaining if she wasn't near to fainting. "My, er, slaves alerted me to a guest— intruder, so I, um, ventured out to meet . . . the girl there. She has the boots."

Ms Whitwell's head turned like a turkey when it hears there is a holiday feast coming soon. I thought that was a good description. She looked at Kitty anyway.

"Well," she said (the fruit broke into segments). "That's different, then."

-XXX-

Ah! But what about Bartimaeus at this time?

Well, I can't tell you. It would ruin the narrative flow. Let's just say he's going through a lot of things that would have my head bashed repeatedly into a cinderblock many times if his fans knew about it.

Ah, we always hurt the ones we love . . .

Why am I saying this now? Well, basically, I'm staggering the parts to ease flow and excuse myself from many boring descriptions, like the way they walked to the kitchen and stuff. And I also like to hear myself write.

It has nothing, and let me make this clear, absolutely nothing to do with shirking or my lack of inspiration. Absolutely nothing. You hear me? WHO THOUGHT THAT! I'LL RIP YOUR EYES OUT! —

-XXX-

"And now for something much the same," said Mr Tipple calmly.

"WHERE THE HELL DID THOSE ROTTING CORPSES COME FROM!" screamed Mr Buttons. "I DON'T WANN PAY YOUR BLOODY NECROMANCER TAX!"

Jane was sulkily silent.

/We have another Interlude . . . trust me, you need it/

GRUNGE no HAMSTER otona bite

(Grungy hamster, act adult)

REVENGE no LOBSTER hiki tsurete

(Revengeful lobster, drag it along)

SNIPER

Fuchi totta sono sekai ni

(I'll say, "What can you see—)

Nani ga mieru tte iu'n'da

(In that fringed world?")

Nerau mae ni sawaritai na

(I want to touch it before I aim for it)

Ride on Shooting Star

Kimi o sagashite kindanshôjô chû

(Searching for you, and in withdrawal syndrome)

Uso o tsuita

(I told a lie)

Ride on Shooting Star

Kokoro no koe de sandanjû no yô ni

With the voice of my heart, like a shotgun

Utai tsutzuketa

I kept on singing

/Feel better? The end/

To say the room was sterile was a euphemism. That means a word skirting around stating that the object has no right in a calm, happy state of mind. So, euphemism is a euphemism for shirking using the actual term, which could sum it up in one syllabic word. Anyway, there is one word for the decor and atmosphere.

The word is BONE.

The place was dry and white. The table was a little shiny, but that just made it eerie. Kitty stared down at her white bowl of white noodles, and resisted the urge to change her own colour and mind to blend in.

"So," said Ms Whitwell crisply (a chopstick split uneasily). "Who are you?"

She was a magician. Obviously. There are hardly any other beings that can radiate such incredibly charisma and repulsion to all in their vicinity. The Triloid had evolved a neat inner waste burning complex just at her glance.

So Kitty didn't answer. She scooped up a noodle (inexpertly. The Orient is a far bit away from London) that tasted of flour and looked like mucus.

Ms Whitwell let the pause stretch out, making Nathaniel squirm in his brutally ergonomic seat and the skin of the Triloid to peel.

"I am Magician of the North," she stated. This surprised Kitty enough to lose all control of her chopstick but not enough to lose the food from her mouth.

"Buf I'f alfready met da Mafifian off da Norf," she said through her noodles.

"What?" inquired Ms Whitwell politely (the chandelier tinkled nervously).

To her Resistance shame Kitty quickly composed herself, but made sure she slurped up her noodles loud enough to show rebellion.

"But I've already met the Magician of the North," she pointed out. "Mrs Underwood, the Merciful Magician?"

Nathaniel looked interested, but glancing at his master's stony expression, hurriedly disguised this as demure attention. Not doing a good job, but still.

"I am a Magician of the North," repaired Ms Whitwell (the frame of a picture of an artic landscape glittered). "Specifically Magician of the North-east."

"North-east?" Kitty repeated.

"'North-east From The Elbow'," continued Ms Whitwell. "Inner Elbow." (That picture frame buckled.)

"Ah. Right," said Kitty politely, the only thing between her and a safe alley a foot of wall and five magic Nexuses. Or Nexi? Not sure. Nexuses sounds silly, but Nexi doesn't show up . . .

"Next time I find a book of guarding spells I can read I'll check," said Kitty, standing up. "Thank you for the food."

"You haven't eaten it all," pointed out Ms Whitwell (the frame wobbled without wind). "Or answered any of my questions."

"Yeah, sorry, but I've got a journey to get back to. I'm going to Pyrite City," Kitty excused herself, eyeing the Triloid that was unfortunately in her path.

"I'd like you to stay a while longer," said Ms Whitwell (the glass of the frame clouded). "And answer my questions."

To her hatred, Kitty found herself forced back into her chair by something worse than an invisible djinni.

"Such as, how could a Commoner such as yourself have managed to—" she paused, then put a stick-thin hand to her tissue thin ear.

"What? How much? How could you? —" (the glass cracked in a spider web shape). "Fine. I'll be there. You attend to the company."

She stood up like a . . . an intimidating person standing up intimidating-ly and stuff. Hey, I'm working through this as quick as I can. You can't expect much lik spellinn and smart words.

"I shall be back soon. Nathaniel, deal with the girl and our new company," ordered Ms Whitwell (the legs of the table shuddered). She then stalked away on some real important stuff.

Farquarl shook his head in sombre comprehension. "'Company'. That means something on level of demi-afrit or successors."

With Ms Whitwell gone, the kids didn't know what to make of each other. Kitty slurped her noodles, Nathaniel tested how far he could bend his knees before threatening his fertility.

So it was a damn good thing when Bartimaeus returned.

'Returned' is too dignified an analogy for my good-natured description of this character. He was more of 'brought'.

The football team from last chapter arrives carrying several armfuls of a dark goop. They deposit this on the clean white table, and walk out of attention. Thanks guys! Please, give it up for the Football team of some place!

Unenthusiastic clapping 

Farquarl inspected the goop with a long serrated blade of some sort. It seemed to react to the touch, and jerked up to attention in some goop-like way. It glanced at Kitty.

"Ooh, my little pretty one, my pretty—" it paused. It inspected Kitty more closely with what I could only refer to as eyes in my laziness.

"Hello, Bartimaeus," said Farquarl smoothly. "Having some trouble?"

The goop swivelled to, er, face him. It sighed.

"Caught again. Damn . . . Never gonna stop . . . give it up . . . Such a dirty mind, always give it up for the touch, of the younger—!" it paused again.

Nathaniel tapped the table in what he would hope would be an authoritative way, but it would have ended up flat if being goop hadn't made Bartimaeus extremely attentive and uninhibited.

"Eh? What's all this then?" he asked.

"Oi!" exclaimed the Triloid. "That's my line!"

"Demon," said Nathaniel sternly. "You are in the company of—"

"Hey!" interrupted Bartimaeus. "Is that who I think it is?" he looked at Farquarl. "My— my— my—"

The cook gave a smile as greasy as one of his hamburger patties. "Why yes. We meet a—"

"MY SHARONA!"

Kitty gave him a stern slap. "Pull yourself together, demon!" she snarled.

The mass of attractive grey goop looked affronted. "Why? I don't mess with the way you look."

Kitty jabbed at her face.

"Yes, I admit it does look a little plain, and capable of attracting only a narrow-minded sucking-up Commoner, but really, child, you should know it is only what matters _inside_. Or money."

"Excuse me—"

Kitty reached out and grabbed his neck, or, what could possibly be a neck, although it was likely that could be around the bridge of the nose now, or a foot, or possibly an intestinal wall or the like. Anyway, just to be nice, Bartimaeus gurgled in a choking way.

"_Excuse me—_"

"Can I have a turn next?" asked Farquarl eagerly.

"Oi!"

"That's my line too!" cried the Triloid in frustration.

"Ahem," went Nathaniel impatiently. "Can we get back to me now?"

The assemblage glanced at him, then at each other, and resumed their activities beforehand.

"Why you little—"

"Hack Hack"

"You're hogging him! Give me my turn!"

"I mean, I get no quotes in the books, and when I finally get a place—"

"Why do you carry make up anyway?"

"I told you not to ask me!"

"You're more a copper tone."

"Admittedly not in the best of situations, but anyway—"

"Hey!" cried Nathaniel in frustration. "Don't ignore me!"

"And I _hate_ cherry flavoured lip gloss!"

"Sorry, Mr Long Name from last chapter used all the Gooseberry and Cream!"

"Fascinating though this conversation is . . ."

"AND THEY KEEP STEALING MY LINES! Which were, admittedly, stolen already . . ."

"I am the authority here!" Nathaniel yelled.

"Hey! That sounds like a good line too!" the Triloid perked up.

"You ain't moi master," said Farquarl, mimicking the accent in spite.

"WHAT! YOU SELFISH BULL, YOU'RE IN TWO BOOKS!"

And so they continued squabbling.

"Listen to me or I'll . . . I'll . . . step on your foot?"

They continued ignoring him.

"I'll use the Systematic Vice on you!"

That caught the attention of Bartimaeus at least.

"Who are you?" he asked, while Kitty strangled his shin.

"Hah!" Nathaniel tossed his head in what was probably supposed to be an aloof way, but probably sent a screen of grease around him as well. "I have been well taught in the ways of guile in djinn! You cannot fool me with your riddles and tricks!"

"What's your name?" asked Bartimaeus.

"Nathaniel. Aw, (rude word in Czech)!"

"Wot 'e say?" went Farquarl, as he fought to get the Triloid's foot out of his ear.

"DARN IT! MY LINE TOO!"

Kitty blinked. "You're name is—"

"Quiet!" went NATHANIEL. "I can't let anyone know my name."

So he can't say HIS NAME IS NATHANIEL? Are you sure about that, NATHANIEL? Because in the books, his name was usually NATHANIEL, until he got is MAGICIAN'S NAME, giving up his BIRTH NAME, and by now he should have given up his BIRTH NAME, which is NATHANIEL, so—

"Shut up!" went NAT— the apprentice in subject. Sorry.

"Damn it! And _I'm_ supposed to be the dumb one!" exclaimed Bartimaeus, shaking his . . . goop sadly.

"Farquarl! Tumber! Go find something else to do!" Nathaniel ordered. "Far away! Out of earshot!"

"Aw, can't see if Oi can do that," said the Triloid, trying to strangle Farquarl. "Your Master told ooce to stay 'ere."

"Go now, or I'll tell you the story about the kittens!" threatened Nathaniel.

"No good, sir," said Farquarl, leaning on an unpleasant salad scoop. "You can't do the hand movements."

"Leave now or I'll sing," threatened the goop— er, Bartimaeus.

That made Farquarl stop. "What?" he asked.

"I'll sing. I will," said Bartimaeus, lifting what might have been his chin, but was probably a kneecap. "Just like in Zimbabwe."

"You wouldn't," hissed the cook, a salad fork pressing into the Triloid's . . . hub.

"100 skulls of blood on the wall . . ." Bartimaeus started. "100 skulls of blood . . ."

"Stop it . . ." growled Farquarl, getting off Tumber.

"If you take one down and pass it around . . ."

"It won't work. I've built up a resistance," said Farquarl triumphantly. "I worked in an opera house, and it echoes in those kitchens!"

"There'd be . . . MY SHARONA!"

Bartimaeus leapt onto the newly formed feet of Ptolemy, dressed in a shiny leather jacket and pants . . . sigh . . . Isn't fanservice wonderful? — And struck a dynamic pose. Sigh . . . Why can't I be a better artist at a time like this?

Anyway, there came from nowhere the sound of guitar backup, and I wish that I could have an mp3 player at the moment to make it sound more realistic, but I have no Japanese kana or midi player to play at this exact time, so you'll have to imagine it.

"Ooh, my little pretty one, my pretty one, when you gonna give me some time Sharona? Ooh, you make my motor run, my motor run—"

"Dear Seth . . ." growled Farquarl.

"Isn't this just the slightest bit off topic?" asked the Triloid to no-one in particular.

"—Never gunna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind—"

"This is wrong on so many levels," pointed out Nathaniel unnecessarily.

"Do you get the feeling that the author is just stalling for space?" Kitty asked, dangerously loud for someone in the vicinity of a mighty flock of crows that would burst through the walls and peck her eyes out if I wished!

"—Of a younger kind . . .

"MY, MY, MY, MY, MY— WHOO!

"M-M-M—"

And then, just at my favourite damn point of the song, who should come barging through the wall like my threat beforehand, but JANE FARRAR!

"Yeah! I got a dramatic entrance!" cheered Jane, before realizing she would have to put on a guise of evil. "Anyway, cower, you losers! Before my wrath and stuff!"

I just wasted 25 words. Please ignore. Disregard the paragraph before last. When checking the number of Words in my total story, please subtract 25. This has been a service announcement of some sort.

"NOBODY LIKES ME!" screamed Jane.

"I DON'T GET ENOUGH NARRATION IN THE LAST TWO BOOKS!" screamed Bartimaeus in a latent attack of idiocy.

"I'M JUST A DISPOSABLE CHARACTER!" wept the Triloid.

Why isn't Anna here?

"OK, OK, break it up," said Kitty authoritatively, clapping her hands. "Can we get back to this screwed up plot?"

NOBODY RESPECTS ME!

"Right, right," waved Jane. "Now, hear me my . . . somewhat obsessed boot-wearing foe! You give me those boots right now, or I'll—"

"Miss Farrar!"

Everybody turned around to see the source of that high-pitched badly placed interjection.

And of course, knowing my track record of torturing and teasing my important characters, it was Nathaniel.

He was suave and debonair. Ha, you really think I'd let that happen? He was aiming for suave and debonair-ness, but it came out as try-hard and hopeless.

"What a pleasant surprise it is having you here!" he said, over-enthusiastically.

"Whatever," said Jane, not even looking at him. "Anyway! Hand over those boots, or I'll—"

"Although I wasn't expecting you; I haven't even got a kettle boiling," Nathaniel babbled on infuriatingly. "Tumber, would you please—"

"Shut up!" went Jane cruelly (is she the one without a heart?). "I'm talking to the girl!"

"We have Earl Grey, Irish Breakfast, Darjeeling—"

"Excuse me! I am blackmailing here!" Jane snarled.

"I am just trying to be a gracious host, Miss Farrar. It is quite an honour to have you here."

Jane Farrar gave him such a death stare to scare puppies into being rabid Rottweiler

But Nathaniel must have had superpowers or something, because he was completely oblivious. I mean, Jane was no Ms Whitwell. She didn't split tablets in two with the sound of her voice. But any such female such as Jane Farrar has mastery over a particular glare that communicates such arrogance, derision and high-ranking power it's almost impossible to . . . impossible to . . . to . . . impossible . . .

"'To think!'" Kitty helpfully finished. "What do you want, you witch?"

"No swearing, this is PG-13," Jane warned. "Now, I have the weight that will tip the scales in my favour, and before anyone can jump in a spoil my glory, I shall pull them out! Behold, your Toto!"

And with, like, this really impressive action or the like, she, like, pulls out the two sock puppets she, like, kidnapped, like, a few sections ago.

"Since my narrator is evidently a spiteful cold hearted snake—" (Horse, actually) "—I shall embellish myself with extremely detailed dialogue no-one in real life would actually say unless paid ala an extensive collection of novels based on vampires!" (Copyright author of that particular series based on historic facts and mythology).

She, like, did a pose. "And now, as I strike an imperial pose—" (Why? What did it ever do to you?) "—I glance down upon you all with scorn! For I, Jane Farrar, have succoured the beloved toys of my only adversary, and, although she stares with such unperturbed expression, she will be forced to relinquish those boots in order to grant back her symbols of childhood!"

Kitty cocked her head. "And if I don't?"

Nathaniel blinked cluelessly (is he the one without a brain? Just kidding, just kidding! He's a brilliant wit; brilliant, just please don't hurt me!). "You mean, you really only came for that girl?"

Jane, like, did something. "Hah! I mock you with my tone and body language! You, my inferior in age, wisdom, and everything other than status (DAMN IT!), I have no care for you! But as for your plain companion—" ("HEY!" went Bartimaeus indignantly) "—All I want from her are those boots! And so, Kitty . . . person, surrender, or I'll—"

"So you don't want a cup of tea?"

Jane stopped dead. I am describing this because I like scenes of intense irritation. In good humour. And if I arranged them.

Jane clenched her jaw and growled.

"Look, boy. We talked for five minutes and most of that was about feta cheese and crackers. If you think that meant something to me, you are sorely mistaken and bound for a life of misery. So would you just shut up, because your speak like a teacher's pet and your upper body is scrawny."

And just after this terrible, terrible verbal assault (which I claim no responsibility for), you could just see Nathaniel's self-control break like a china teapot with a delicate pattern of blue flowers dropped on cheap ceramic tiles. Not that I've experienced this.

"Eh? Eh?" went Nathaniel, and I wish I had kana, so I wouldn't have to waste two characters on a syllable.

She paid him no heed. I mean, she, like, didnnt car. "My unworthy politically-related opponent, I pay no heed to you!" (I just said that!) "Kitty, whose last name I need to effect an air of malice and scorn but don't remember hearing—"

"It's 'Jones'," sighed Kitty, just to stop the terrible sentence deviation.

"Ah-ha! That was your first mistake!" Jane, like, said. "I say triumphantly! For in the occupation of Magician, whether Malicious or Merciful, a name has much power! Although you, who is a Commoner, one without the skill or influence to be worth worrying about, have none of my afore-hinted powers, with those boots, that are on your feet, which are attached to your scrawny knees—" (Her knees are _not_ scrawny!) "—By your ankles and shins—" (You are going off topic!) "—You are both immune to my power, which is wickedly cool and powerful—" (You are not using semicolons at all!) and have that its own mystical powers that you have—" (Grammar enthusiasts are gagging in their seats!) "—And so are deserving, unworthy though you are, to face the full, which is strong and mighty, —" (You are using too many commas!) "—Of my power!" (And I don't like you.)

When you have finished twitching from that abomination, see that Nathaniel has a huddled under the table chanting "Safe, Secret, Secure' under his breath, and Kitty is still unmoved. Notice I only used two commas in that previous sentence (not including brackets, 'cause they don't count), and all for grammatically correct purposes. You wouldn't have dropped dead before reaching its end from oxygen deprivation.

"QUIET!" said J.

"As much as I regret being nothing more than a torture for Bartimaeus and this time one to move the plot along, I feel I need to point out that Master's, whose name I didn't catch because the author is cruel, Master isn't back yet," pointed out Farquarl.

"That's because she's a little tied up," said Jane Farrar smugly, and I'm saying this only because there's a punchline coming soon.

"You mean she's bound in ropes tied with a fiendishly devised knot with a gag in her mouth in a room slowly filling with an unidentified gas?"

"No, she's just got a hole in her nexus and a boot to the face," said Jane, ruining the gag DAMN YOU!

"Look, just to get this exchange slightly faster, why do you think I care about sock puppets?" Kitty asked.

"Because they told me!" stated Jane Farrar frankly, and so I state too, because its result is thus follows . . .

Kitty, Bartimaeus, the unimportant other djinn and even the cracked Nathaniel looked blankly at her.

"They told you?" Kitty repeated dubiously.

"Of course they did!" said Jane, offended. "I was in the forest, and the next thing I knew—" she broke off to look at Mr Tipple, who had somehow fixed himself to her hand. "No, that was _after_ the attack by those other characters!"

There seemed to had been a shout from Mr Buttons, who had also attached himself to her hand. "No, it's near impossible to hit a Sapphire Ooze with close combat," she said. "Use magic instead."

The deadpan look of the assemblage was so deadpan it could have caused a kitchen to weep.

She glanced back at them. Not the kitchen, the assemblage.

"Hey, don't look at me like that," she said, with little success. "They did so tell me that, after that barbarian, death chick, swordsmen, golem, mysterious priest and crazy girl on a Vespa ambushed me! I'm not crazy!"

There is a very pregnant pause.

Then Bartimaeus said, with an Elvis accent, which is a brutal leap from the Knack reference several paragraphs ago, "But that's crazy. The Vespa is a left-handed scooter, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh."

"I don't care. Keep the sock puppets," shrugged Kitty carelessly.

But we _need_ a Toto!

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," she whispered.

"What? But I don't want these stinking—" Jane paused, as if someone had interrupted her, and glared at her hands.

"Shut up, OK? I don't care how many Troglodytes you have to kill, you have to find—"

She looked at Mr Tipple. "Him? Anti-social, psychotic personality, hostility, _abnormal fear of pincushions?_ Non-funny schizophrenia and Tourette's Syndrome? And— _you can't have that in PG-13_!"

She looked ill at Mr Buttons.

"No, don't, _don't_, GET OFF MY HAND!" she screamed, throwing down the puppets, but Mr Tipple stayed on.

"Shut up! Shut up! I don't care! Stop talking to me!" she shook her arm crazily, stumbling madly around so she stood on that pretty dress she had.

Finally, after a few minutes and sobs, the final puppet came off, and she turned around, and ran in the opposite direction.

"I'll be back, and don't you _dare_ make fun of this!" she cried, running into the Master's bathroom. And because I am just the slightest bit sorry, I let her run through the wall and into the unknown.

"Well, that was elongated," commented Farquarl.

-XXX-

Meanwhile, on the edge of the dome, just so I can stagger the flow the slightest and have a break from writing in the location beforehand, Ms Whitwell was poked by the woody finger of a large and oddly muscled willow.

Then it hurriedly retreated, because it wasn't that brave.

-XXX-

"—Eight, seven, six, five— oh, you're already on. My bad," said Tony, hurriedly clapping those clapper thingies they have in Hollywood and running away.

Gee, I miss Anna.

Anyway, after the Chinese takeaway boxes were hurriedly swept away (Kitty was still hungrily eating Sweet and Sour pork) the Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man of the story were seated around the table. The Triloid had gone to pretend to look for Ms Whitwell, and Farquarl was hovering somewhere just close enough to reach if an opportunity to torture Bartimaeus arose.

"—And that's the pointless recount of my life until now," Nathaniel 'finished'.

"That your parents gave you up for adoption and there were eight mysterious years up until now?" questioned Bartimaeus.

Look, I can't think of anything, _OK_?

"Yes, if you don't want to have crows pecking out your eyeballs," said Nathaniel, his hands folded gracefully and everything.

Kitty noticed this. Well, she would have, _if she didn't have her nose in a carton of fried rice!_

"_If you had fed me_— hang on, just wait 'til I've finished . . ." Kitty hurriedly slurped up the last bits of her meal.

"Right. Hey, you didn't look so confident when that witch was here!" she pointed out, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

Nathaniel nearly choked on a string of cabbage caught in his throat. Once he had suitably washed this down with a cup of watery tea (you need to let it sit for about ten or fifteen minutes next time!), he tried to affect a look of calm interest on his face. Which made him look like he was about to sneeze.

"Do you need a handkerchief, if you can't prise that one from your breast pocket?" asked Bartimaeus in that same 'I just did something like kill you parents' he used ages ago at the start of the chapter. Boy, is it long. Better step up the pace.

"No!" squeaked Nathaniel, sounding more like a rusty hinge than a magician. "I mean, um, never mind . . ." he sounded so depressed I could have changed the genre to angst. I won't, though.

"It's just . . . these days, I don't feel like a real magician any more . . ." he said sadly, no-one wanting to point out that this is a parody work and anyway he's fourteen. Well, Bartimaeus wanted to, but I shot a crow-feather dart through his coif.

"Master noticed it to. Last week, she wanted me to fire a poor single father with three kids and two medium sized dogs from his job, but I couldn't," Nathaniel said miserably. "And I can't make the djinn anguish working for me. They nearly . . . they nearly . . . they nearly _enjoy_ it," said Nathaniel in disgust. He looked on the verge of tears, but not breaking, because that would slow everything down.

"There, there," said Bartimaeus soothingly.

And because there was a smidgen of kindness left in her soul, and not much space left between this and a novella, Kitty mentioned: "We are going to see the Great Magician of Ahz to have him solve our problems. How about you come to see if he can give you a heart?"

And Nathaniel said: "NO!"

Great. No Hook of Bruised Souls.

"I do not want a heart. I want less of one," Nathaniel explained. "No, wait, that could be misinterpreted. What I want: is less kokoro."

"Huh?" went Kitty and Bartimaeus.

"Kokoro," Nathaniel started. "Is Japanese. Means 'heart', 'feeling', 'spirit'. Basically, I want less of that."

"So what you're saying is that you want less free will?" asked Bartimaeus.

"Pardon?" went Nathaniel, and poor Kitty, who could not speak Japanese.

"Because 'kokoro' can also apply to your will, or emotions and such," Bartimaeus explained. "And what does Japanese have to do with djinn anyway?"

Sorry.

"There's few references to the culture, and those are tourists and a pig dressed in a kimono. What kind of poor, obsessed sap would draw connections to a great book of the Literate era and a genre indulges the viewer in flighty fantasies with pretty girls and boys and—"

There is spiteful activity on my part.

"I'm going to the Magician to get less brain," said a feather and soot covered Bartimaeus. "You can come to, and bring all your friends. Bambi, Rupert the Bear, Big Bird, and the Red Baron! And then we can pick flowers, and dance to a polka played on the accordion, and—"

"Are you sure? I mean, I still have a career to think of, and my master—" Nathaniel broke off, and looked around the area. It was littered with thick black goop, several cooking instruments, hair grease, noodles, Chinese food, and a good number of my school books which have somehow fallen in there . . . oh, that's where they went.

"Aren't you magicians like really uptight?" asked Kitty, but with really no expectation for an answer. The BONE-like décor already answered the question.

There is a pause, as Nathaniel weighs up the options in his grease-covered but admittedly amazing head.

". . . Let's go," he said, and without much further ado (for one who is used to schedules aligning his toilet breaks) they leave the complex.

But just as they reach the door, Kitty looked down on her hands and asked aloud, "When did I put these on?"

Mr Tipple and Mr Buttons were there, blinking innocently with their button eyes.

"We missed you," said Mr Tipple, only to her.

"ALL MY CHARACTERS GOT TURNED TO STONE BY MEDUSAS!" said Mr Buttons sorrowfully.

"Can we go now? My djinni sense are tingling," said Bartimaeus, suitably recovered. "It's bad enough travelling with a Magician. And by the way, that is a terrible hat."

-XXX-

Ms Whitwell was, just a bit later, standing in the middle of her hallway, noticing the damage.

"WHO RAN THROUGH THE WALL OF MY BATHROOM!" she screamed. "TUMBER!" The table cracked at the tone of this.

"It wasn't me!" whimpered the unfortunate Triloid.

"Fix this while I take my shower, and if there is a single brick out of place, I will Invert Skin you," Ms Whitwell ordered. Every surface of paint peeled.

"I HATE MY LIFE!" howled Tumber.

Hello. Are we done? Woo, that took a long time. Sorry.

Now with much further ado (AKA procrastinating), we have the disclaimers, done kindly by Nathaniel.

Nathaniel looks sickly at the page he is holding. "What, all this?"

Sorry, I went a bit crazy.

"You're telling me!" called Bartimaeus, combing out his coif in the empty makeup room.

Ah well, that which does not kill us can only make us stronger.

"Darn it! A Sun Tzu reference!" growled Nathaniel, pencilling in another line.

And Anna said I couldn't make it through the day without her! Hah! It's only a small repair bill for the props, replacement for the scenery and staff, and a lot of excess characters I have to carefully get rid of . . .

Zelgadis dashes past. "Get him away from me!"

The source of his frustration is close behind. "Wait Mr Zelgadis, orange will go with your eyes!" called Xellos happily.

. . . Damn. Shouldn't have let him near Bartimaeus.

Bartimaeus walks past, his face streaked with makeup. "He overpowered me, OK?" he growls as he leaves.

Overpowered? With force or charisma?

"Shut up!"

"As there is now a lull in conversation, I will try to do the disclaimers," says Nathaniel, shuffling about two pages.

"Alright," he said, sounding business like. "The author owns nothing of the following. 'The Bartimaeus Trilogy', by Jonathon Stroud; 'The Wizard of Oz' by Frank Baum or its movies; Japanese kana; Xylophones; British accents or policemen; Taffeta (a water-like material for those not interested in sewing); a story involving . . . kittens; Monty Python references; Eion Colfer's 'The Supernaturalist'; any alleyways or train stations; 'Ride on Shooting Star' by the pillows, theme of the FLCL six episode nonsensical series; Dr Seuss; football teams; 'My Sharona' by Knack; the mp3 technology; any types of tea such as Earl Grey, Darjeeling, but Dragon Eye is really nice; a series of novels based around vampires and their interference in historic acts (AKA Anne Rice's vampire novels); really bad writing (I think, I'm only being paid to say this); Elvis; any mental 'disabilities'; Chinese food; Bambi (by Disney); Rupert Bear (by someone); Big Bird (from Sesame Street); and The Red Baron (I got it from Peanuts). Phew!"

Nathaniel smiles, until he checks the other side.

"_There's more?_ Games, books, and _anime_? Dear Gladstone," he put a hand to his head.

"Oh well. Genre, games not owned by the author," Nathaniel sighed. "Pokemon Puzzle League; Hearts; 'The Lands of Lore' by Westwood; and the 'Might and Magic series', reference to XII and XIII." He took another breath.

"And yet more. Books not owned by the author: The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett; the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling; Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky (which is a poem in 'Through the Looking Glass'); and Tamora Pierce's various Quartets."

"Finally, anime not owned by the author . . . geez . . . I need more pay . . ." Nathaniel wiped his forehead. "OK. FLCL by Gainex, and all those things related to its characters (Vespa, Rickenbacker bass); and the Slayers. This is supposedly restraint. Oh well. I'll just leave now."

Hey, wait!

"No, I'm too exhausted. I'm going home," Nathaniel muttered, limping away.

But who's going to do the next chapter . . . Oh, Haru-san!

:Minutes later:

Haruko: Hey there! Haruhara— Whoops, Raharu Haruko here! Age 19—

ROI: Ahem.

Haruko: Hai, hai. Age 20, somewhat evil psychopath but a good-looking one at that!

ROI: --Cough-- Former housekeeper of Naota AKA Takkun.

Haruko: Yeah, but there was all that business with Medical Mechanica and stuff . . .

ROI: You _used_ him! And the plot made no sense! I don't know whether to hate or like you!

Haruko: Shrugs Whatever. Currently next chapter synopsis-er here. I'm paid in modelling sets. Whispers Send some to me; they are way too cheap here.

ROI: Ahem again.

Haruko: No planes or anything. Robots generally. Some Nadiesco for sentiments' sake. Normal voice And now, coming up next!

Takes deep breath, then says all without pausing

Ya know how there're all those trilogies, and then there's all these groups of three? Like the smart one, dumb one and nice one? Sort of like the maiden, the mother and the other one like Terry Pratchett said. He's good at that sort of thing, you know? But then there're three plus Dorothy, so it doesn't really count, does it?

Next chapter of the Wizard of Ahz: 'If I Only Had a . . ." "If I Never Had a . . ." Alright, we don't have a title or plot yet, but you know the Cowardly Lion's coming. But who is it? I'm not sure either . . .

See ya later, anyway!

ROI: Pretty good.

Haruko: Whatever. Can I go now? Vespas don't fix themselves, you know.

ROI: Maybe you could buy one of the latest versions that might?

Haruko: --Draws out guitar-- What . . . did . . . you . . . SAY!

ROI: Er . . . Evidently a very bad thing?

Haruko: HEATHEN FOOL! YOU SHALL BE PUNISHED FOR YOUR SPOUT OF BLASPHEMY! --Gives chase with bass guitar--

ROI: AAHHHH! DON'T HURT MEEEE!

Xelloss: --From sidelines, of course-- Run little girl, run!

ROI: --Is doing just that--

Tony: Hey, watch out for the lighting equipment.

Susan: --Returned from Death's World for paycheck-- This is why you do not let out-of-genre characters into your parody stories.

Disclaimer Demons: --Pop up from nowhere-- AND ALSO USING PREVIOUSLY CREATED CHARACTERS ARE TERRIBLE CATALYSTS FOR CLICHÉS AND ALLUSIONS!

Tony: Like, hey, why didn't yous come up in the chapter when you were mentioned?

Disclaimer Demon #1 (Male): IT IS STEREOTYPICAL TO APPEAR WHEN THERE IS A BRIEF MENTION OF YOURSELF!

Disclaimer Demon #2 (Female): YES! AND WE WERE ON A TASK GIVEN TO US BY OUR MASTER!

Tony: Jane Farrar?

Disclaimer Demon #1: NO! SHE IS NOT OUR MASTER! ANOTHER ENTITY IS!

Donald: --Comes hauling light fixture-- Is its name something like Hellmaster or Hellraiser or something?

Xelloss: Hellmaster is already taken.

ROI: --Over shoulder-- 'Hell' is a prefix used too often in making names!

Donald: --Drops light-- DON'T HURT ME! --Runs--

Tony: Hey, we're running out of backstage staff!

ROI: Sorry. Haruko, stop!

Haruko: --To everyone's surprise, she does--

ROI: Great, now, maybe we can put up the competition examples before—

Haruko: ITADAKI-MAMMOTH::Revs up bass:

ROI: AHHHHHH! HELP ME!

Anna walks into the scene of chaos. Hrun has seduced all female staff, Susan is gone, having rode away on Death's horse (AKA Binky), Zelgadis is drinking coffee in a huff in the corner, Xellos is encouraging my beating, and all the Canon characters have left.

"Is this what happens when I leave for a day?" she asks grumpily, her thesis not defined and her headache not gone.

I can't answer because I'm using Donald as a shield. Admittedly, I may be an ethereal force here, but the bass still hurts.

"Alright, I'll drop the examples," Anna sighs. "No need to thank me—"

Please, _please_ get rid of the out-of-context-characters!

"Fine," Anna sighed again, getting out her Hook of Bruised Souls. "Alright you lot! If you don't get out of here now, you'll feel the bad end of my critique! And you to, Demon thingies! I don't remember employing you!"

"WE DO NOT COME WHEN EMPLOYED!"

"BUT NOW WE ARE QUESTIONED, WE SHALL DISAPPEAR!"

"I think I will do that too," says Xellos, disappearing in boredom.

"I'll . . . find a way . . ." said Zelgadis weakly, walking out.

"Whatever! Gotta find Atomsk!" shrugged Haruko, leaving me.

Hrun has passed out in a costume room, having found a strange supply of wine.

"Right," said Anna, putting away her Hook. "Now, finish up!"

All I ever needed to know I learned from the Bartimaeus Trilogy!

1. If you are at first a brief mention, then a helpful plot point, you will warp into becoming the main plotter in the conclusion of the book then get yourself killed (AKA Makepeace)

2. If your name is a phrase relating to goodwill, you must be bad.

3. If you are a stubborn, unreasonable, shouting prat who will not accept the wisdom of an older character or let go of a grudge, you will become a popular character. And maybe die, negating all your past mistakes.

4. If you are a sarcastic, jaded, ancient violent entity with a smart mouth and dumb mistakes, and narrate in first person, you will have a series named after you and become a popular character. And kind things will happen to you when you are certain everything is cruel and evil.

5. If you have been repressed and held in distain by a class of people, and try to cause a revolution against them, all your friends will die, your parents will become estranged, you will get beaten up, betrayed, do something nice for the person who betrayed you, and still never get up. Then possibly fall in love for one of those who repressed you, who will then sacrifice himself, making it impossible for you to hold a grudge.

Bye. See you all later.


	6. Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion?

I _would_ have an opening line, but because I didn't get any suggestions from my competitions, I'm not putting anything up, so _there_.

Well, I've been busy too.

School started, (it's nasty being a senior. You have to start earlier, leave later, and wear a stupid tie that gets in everything you go) my birthday happened (Happy Birthday to me!), my Slayers TV box set came in, and I've discovered this bunch of old Windows games I've been trying out for the last month or so!

But I must get going. And helping me with the latest reviews is none other than the beautiful, talented, Anna person! Whoo!

Anna: This still doesn't make up for my missed paycheck.

ROI: Hey, it's not my fault . . . that Hrun stole our props . . . that Haruko destroyed our studio . . . that Xelloss and Bartimaeus emptied our entire cosmetics stock between them . . .

Anna: You're not going to do that again. Zoom.

ROI: What?

Anna: Zoom. /Mimes something swooping overhead/

ROI: Pardon?

Anna: That was the sound made by those alternate genre allusions used in the last chapters. Not to mention the use of Japanese . . .

ROI/Laughs nervously/

Anna: And J-Pop. Who knows 'the pillows' anyway?

ROI: They're great! And it was either that, or . . .

_Sobakasu_

Theme of first season of _Ruroni Kenshin_

Daikirai datta sobakasu wo chotto

(I touched those hated freckles lightly and sighed)

Hitonadeshite tame iki wo hitotsu

(My "heavy class" love has dissolved clearly)

Hebi ikkyuu no koi wa migoto ni

(Just like a sugarcube.)

ROI: Or . . .

Tachi mukau saki ni kawaita kaze

(No matter how hard this wind)

Hageshiku fuki aretemo

(Tries to push me back)

Jumon no hitotsu mo tonaetanara

(I recite a single spell and)

Watashi no PEESU ni naru

(Set the pace my own way)

ROI: Or—

Anna/Swings the Hook of Bruised Souls/ Let's not get excited now.

ROI: Sorry . . . Couldn't help my— /Is struck with the bad end/

Anna: REVIEWS! NOW!

Reviews for Chapters 1-3

Piratica: (Don't know whether that's from the book by Tanith Lee or not, but I like it anyway.)

ROI: Thanks! That 'young and breakable thing' was a metaphor for being really inexperienced and susceptible to flames and stuff.

Anna: And tendency to procrastinate, break down, go off topic, obsess over books and anime . . .

ROI: Er, right. Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing! And about the stress balls? I got this really great idea—

Anna: It's gotta go somewhere.

ROI/Ignores her/ This great idea that I have Words of the Day! You know, a particular word or subject to mention in a chapter. Stress balls _are_ mentioned in this chapter, but that won't count because I'm planning on having it in one of the off-tangent chapters I'm planning.

Anna: Basically, once she gets off something vaguely resembling plot and order, she'll go completely nuts and base a chapter on your word.

ROI: Nah! I'll just mention it!

Anna: If you get that far.

ROI: IS $60 A WEEK WORTH ALL THESE PUT-DOWNS!

Reviews for Chapter 5

the Thirteenth Councilor:

ROI: Yeah, sorry about those . . .

Anna: So you should be.

ROI/Mutters/ Will you leave me alone?

Anna: What was that?

ROI/Brightly/ Nothing! Anyway, you like Nathaniel too? Unfortunately, though my imagination supplies me with many uses for that plastic fork (mostly aggressive), it is integral to my plan that I annoy and spite the living daylights out of my characters.

Anna: What she means is: She is so drained of inspiration she decided to insult every lover of good narration and character design and pass it off as funny.

ROI/Squeezes eyes shut and clenches fists/

Anna: You have my complete permission to stab her to death with your—

RIO: RETRIBUTION!

/Crows of all sizes, mostly big, explode from thing air, and blow Anna away in a rush of wings/

ROI: Thanks, guys. By the way, although I do think Jane Farrar is a bit of a pain, all I really needed was a scapegoat, and somebody to rigorously cut down to size. But I could read a sympathetic fic . . . if only to parody some time in the future.

Anna/Limping up/ See, I told you she had no original—

ROI: SLAY!

/Crows repeat action, only longer/

ROI: She'll be OK. By the way, I was searching for the origin of your Penname. I wrote it down in my little notebook I carry everywhere, I checked two major Library systems, and couldn't find one mention. Then I realized, to my embarrassment, that I had spelt the author's name wrong. It is Flavia Bujor, not Flavia Bigor. Yeah, my handwriting's bad.

Ah, and the mouthpiece on a side-blown flute is generally an extension of the length of the instrument. My bent mouthpiece, deliberately bent to accommodate for my short arms, has this length curve around parallel to the body. You're only inflicted with a brass section? (The sax is technically woodwind, but anyway.) Can we swap some of our saxes for your trumpets? We're running low.

So, now comes the problem. I've already used up the three main characters, where am I going to dredge up the next? _That_ was the inspiration for my X part series . . .

Well, read on and see.

* * *

Chapter Six: If I Never Had . . . 

Hmm . . .

Chapter 6: If I Only Had a . . .

No . . .

Chap 6: How Dorothy—

No, Kitty—

How Kitty Helped the Cowardly Lion—

Gah. Damn it.

The black rolling chair squeaking crazily with every fidget, the unidentifiable girl took her hands off the keyboard and stared at the row of books in front of her.

Sighing, she tried to dredge about in her mind a muse or inspiration of any sorts. Something to converse with. But with the very nature of her story, any canon characters were unable (or unwilling) to arrive to help. Anyone from another story or genre would be useless too. They would only warp the plot with their influence. Well, the only ones she could consider would.

So she basically stared at air while mp3s and midis played from her headphones.

_A problem well stated is a problem half solved_.

She humphed to herself. "I ask for help and I get a proverb?" she muttered mentally to herself.

_You either get it, or you don't._

"_Get out of my head._"

The temptation to take a break and do something else (likely read while listening to music) was barely suppressed, when the presence of two Original Characters caught her attention.

"Hello there."

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!"

How the sock puppets could move around and have themselves attached to her hands was a mystery better left untouched, but there they were. The kindly mismatched eyes of Mr Tipples glinted with strange deceptive intelligence and the eyes of Mr Buttons . . . were fluff.

"Having some trouble?" Mr Tipples inquired politely.

"CAUSE YOU'RE GUNNA HAVE A HELL OF A LOT MORE, NOW!" Mr Buttons said at what could be a loud level, but due to the strange nature of their presence didn't cause anyone to come up and check. Dinner was cooking anyway.

The authoress known here as Rune-of-Iormangand— ROI — nudged down her headphones.

"Yeah," she said. "Pretty much."

"MAY YOU SUFFER IN YOUR INSECURITY!" shouted Mr Buttons.

"And what might this be?" asked Mr Tipples.

ROI shrugged.

"The next chapter is practically impossible. Not only to I not have a copy of a movie to compare with, I'm not sure of which character to, um, actually use as the Cowardly Lion. Not conclusively enough anyway."

"I see . . ." mused Mr Tipples.

"HAH!" exclaimed Mr Buttons. "I knew it! Your inexperience and poor planning and no talent has finally caught up with you! YOU SUCK, NEWT!"

"Newt?"

"Acronym in Harry Potter. Anyway, so this is your problem? You don't know what to do or how to do it?"

"Yeah . . ." the authoress looked away from the puppets in embarrassment. "Always been my fall down."

"AND YOU'RE GRAMMAR STINKS TOO!"

"IT'S DIALOGUE! I CAN USE STYLIZED GRAMMAR IF I WANT!" shouted back the author.

"So it's a search for the Cowardly Lion . . ." mused Mr Tipples.

ROI was trying to stuff Mr Buttons in a drawer, with her hand still inside.

"Where in the world is the Cowardly Lion . . ." murmured the good sock puppet.

"Hah! I've _designed_ such threats before!"

"Who is the Cowardly Lion . . ." repeated Mr Tipples.

"I _said_ I don't know yet!" said ROI testily. "Things happened, stuff changed, characters switched places. I've thought for ages, and I don't—"

"Where in the world is the Cowardly Lion!" Mr Tipples shouted triumphantly.

"_I said I don't—_"

"Wait, please," Mr Tipples begged. "I have an idea." For a sock puppet, he was extraordinarily gifted.

ROI pauses long enough for Mr Buttons to haul his head from the drawer, panting horribly.

"You keep sugar packets in there?"

"Here we have perfect scenario for a deviation from the parody!" explained Mr Tipples enthusiastically. "An entire chapter dedicated to your study of particular characters and how they would fit the suit for the Cowardly Lion!"

"At size M? It would have to a damn fat one," said Mr Buttons.

"Hey! There's another one!" said ROI, mentally scribbling that down. "But, might the readers get impatient?"

"This is your soul's expression. It leaves you free from others' opinions," said Mr Tipples serenely. "As they are likewise free to hold their own opinions too."

"THEY WOULD BUTCHER YOU LIKE THE LIZARD YOU ARE!" Mr Buttons spat back in opposition.

"Would he be scared of a magnetized pin holder?" asked ROI.

"If it was bright yellow, maybe. Anyway, you can write a list of all your possible characters, and then weave a plot to get them to interact somehow with the current leading characters," Mr Tipples suggested. "And you could use—"

"Thanks," ROI swept the headphones over her ears, changed play list, and turned up the volume. "That's all I need."

"You're welcome," said Mr Tipples kindly.

"You will crash and burn!" screamed Mr Buttons. "AND USE AN UN-ERGONOMICALLY DESIGNED KEYBOARD!"

And so, the chapter progressed.

Where in the world is the Cowardly Lion?

It was an atmosphere of picturesque beauty. The sun was gently shining, outlining the perfectly leaf green leaves with a golden aura. Birds with sweet twinkly voices tweeted elevator music in time to the babbling of the brook.

Of course, you know what must happen next.

"We're lost."

"Maybe."

"We are lost!"

"Maybe!"

"I'm telling you, we are lost!"

"I KNOW!"

A djinni and a magician team will never catch on. Bartimaeus and Nathaniel had, after a moment of blinking in the dawn light twenty minutes ago, looked at each other, and declared their mistake.

There are no fruit in these trees, but politely phrased metaphors.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU INSANE DUGONG!"

Dugong? Oh, sorry. I mean, I'm not hinting at anything. That last paragraph could have been misinterpreted to something . . . weird. Although it wouldn't matter to me, I'm an experienced reader of—

"SHUT UP! DEAR GOD, MY EARS!"

LOOK, IT'S A PERFECTLY RESPECTABLE GENRE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ IF YOU DON'T—

"Ahem," interjected Mr Tipples politely. "That topic is better discussed elsewhere among intellectual equals, but we do have a fanfic to get on with."

Right.

"No, _you're_ a— a— dugong." Dugong?

Anyway, the relationship between Bartimaeus and Nathaniel was clear. I mean, ngh . . .

We'll have the dialogue explain. DAMN TWISTED ENGLISH LANGUAGE!

"I shouldn't have let you come. Heck, I shouldn't be here. I'm perfectly capable of walking to Pyrite City and seeing the Like Grand and Powerful Wizard of Oz."

"It's 'Ahz', and I don't know why I came. I could have had my master get me to Pyrite City in a limo on a meaningless errand. I could have caught a hay cart. _Anything_ would be better than traveling with a demon."

Kitty sighed to herself as the two bickered like . . . bickering things. Even she was feeling that she would have preferred walking to Pyrite City on her own, even if there were lions and tigers and bears.

"Oh, my!" Mr Tipples interrupted with great timing. "I could have sworn we'd passed those trees before!"

"No, _you're_ a tree," said Mr Buttons grumpily, because no-one listened to _him_ any more. Hah!

"Stupid dugong!"

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

"And I thought that clearing was just like the one I slept in," Kitty added.

"And I might be wrong—"

"No, _you're_ a wrong— I mean, _you're_—"

"But _maybe_ we are circling our original location."

"Dugong!"

"You mean we're walking in circles?" Kitty asked.

She realized there was a sudden silence.

"What are you doing?" asked Nathaniel.

"You're not talking to those sock puppets, are you?" asked Bartimaeus suspiciously.

"So what if I am?" asked Kitty defensively.

"To those same puppets that sent the Malicious Magician of the West mad and running only a chapter ago?"

"Oh. Um, in that case, no."

"Good," nodded Bartimaeus, more from the satisfaction that he got somebody to listen to him rather than saving a girl's sanity.

"Thanks," said Kitty, and they walked on.

Nathaniel and Bartimaeus were just about to get a good argument going when . . .

"And no, I don't think that every game has to end with something suspiciously futuristic. That was only for— look, it's foreshadowing— no, I am _not_ foreshadowing. That was only for two of the . . . two of the . . ."

She trailed off as she spotted the looks the magician and djinni were giving her.

"All I know is that those sock puppets are spooky and weird," stated Bartimaeus.

"Spooky and weird?" repeated Nathaniel incredulously. "What would a djinni find 'spooky and weird?'"

"No, Mr Buttons, he is not— well, he is a bit weird, but not spooky," Kitty said to the weird and spooky sock puppets.

They stared at her again.

"Um, look. They're just sock puppets, they stand in for Toto, it's nothing crazy," Kitty said soothingly to the Scarecrow, Tin Man and various readers. "And it just adds to the whole mystery."

"Well, I guess—" began Nathaniel.

"—Because they take place in two different lands with two different storylines, and I'm not sure it even follows chronologically."

"Alright, stop right there. They are obviously well placed enemy weapons of mental influence," stated Nathaniel authoritatively. "Hold out your arms."

"Gee, that's nice, for a magician . . ." started Bartimaeus, fully aware something was coming up to contradict that statement and lead on to another argument.

". . . Obviously placed on you by the Malicious Magician . . ."

"It's coming . . ." murmured Bartimaeus.

"To get to me."

"Hah!" Bartimaeus exclaimed. "Such arrogance is typical of the hard hearted magicians! As if one of such power and statue, although one of you and still hated by spirits such as me is also held in higher importance, would ever consider you to be a— whoa!"

It is such a shame that such an argument promising to turn into a real delicious read of contradictions and funny words and girly slaps was interrupted just then. But do not fear, for I am sure that another one of equal if not better potential will turn up over and over again, until you are sick with my writing, and want to hunt me down with a pitchfork, maple syrup and pillow—

":Cough:Cough: Whoa!"

—"Oh, no!" I would shout, and try to get away. "Pin her on the pitchfork!" you would cry. "No!" I would cry. "Make her drink pure maple syrup!" you would call. "No!" I would cry again. "That will rot my teeth!" "Make her sit on the comfy pillows!" you would cry. "No!"—

"Ahem, _Whoa!_"

—I would cry, this now becoming repetitive. "It has lace and a flower—"

"I said: WHOA!"

Right, right. The source of the whoa?

"Whoa! It's like this huge city just popped out of nowhere!"

_I can write my own descriptions, thanks!_

Anyway, coming so suddenly out of the trees it could be thought it was a hurriedly put plot point, but you'd be wrong! You see, this was the recently discovered city of Fluoride!

"Didn't there use to be a river here somewhere? Just after where Dorothy met the Cowardly Lion?" Nathaniel questioned.

Yes! Do you see the connection?

"I'm supposed to be the Scarecrow. Of course I don't," snapped Bartimaeus.

Fluoride City! Built around the fairly average Munchkin River, it is a sprawling mass of all types of creatures, from the peace-loving Munchkins (in the minority) to the somewhat vicious Winkles, and to the conveniently free djinn and curiously placed magicians. It is said that crime stops in Fluoride City, and it does so to catch its breath!

"Great," said Kitty, less than enthusiastic about my laboriously constructed description.

"What does this have to do with anything?" asked Nathaniel to the general surroundings, which includes me.

And in my own mysterious way, I answer . . .

"YOU!"

All main characters turn their heads to the source of the accusation.

"YOU!"

"Me?" went Kitty.

"YOU!"

"You must be mistaken," said Nathaniel.

"YOU!"

"Hah!" sneered Bartimaeus. "You probably just offended an old ancient taboo that states that anyone wearing a suit more than two sizes too small must be chopped into little pieces and stewed!"

And because we know how innocent the rest are—

"It was the dugong! DUGONG!"

WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME THAT!

—"You evil little beast of oppression and greed!"

Bartimaeus nodded towards Nathaniel.

"You sad little example of a cruel world!"

Bartimaeus nodded towards Kitty.

"You little only example of the sirenian genus _dugong!_"

Hey! Where did that come from?

"You ugly gargoyle!"

Bartimaeus tried pathetically to load this off on either the Dorothy or the Author (he would be sorry . . .), but the accusatory person, backed up by the eight spear pointers (didn't I just say twelve? Some of them are holding two), grasped hold of a handful of super-glued straw and dragged him into the city.

"Well, that's a shame," shrugged Nathaniel, turning around.

"Great! I have to get stuck with the magician!" grumbled Kitty.

She paused for five seconds.

"Whatever."

She turned and followed.

"Halt!" called out one of the spear pointers (just holding one).

"Those could be conspirators!" called out another (he was holding three).

"Better get them all, just to be safe," said another, holding no spears (but a massively decked out military-designed gun, which could fire 25 bullets in three seconds, fit three bayonets, and come in a variety of pleasant pastel colours (this model was blue).)

"You'll never get me alive!" screamed Mr Buttons.

"We haven't done anything," said Mr Tipples calmly.

"—And make sure the one with multiple personalities is put in _one_ cell. We already had a strike about overcrowding in our branch," ordered the "YOU!" man.

"Look, there's obviously been a mistake," stated Nathaniel, holding out his hands in a polite yet authoritative way. "If you could just—"

/Bonk/

"Thanks," said Kitty, looking over the magician who just had a length of spear bent around his head. "Now, if you could just get the demon—"

/Bonk/

"You know, we do have handcuffs," commented the gun holder.

"DO YOU WANT TO STOP ME! ARE YOU REPRESSING ME!" screamed the single spear holder with an inferiority complex.

"Right! The outline, boys!"

"I think it was a little fatter there."

"No you idiot, now you're making it look stupid."

"Well, I hardly think it was likely to have three wrists!"

The captain of the team (the 'YOU!' guy) strode up, dragging an unenthusiastic Bartimaeus behind him.

"Right!" he said, giving the djinni a shake. "Identify this person!"

Bartimaeus didn't reply.

"Now, now, tight lips won't help anything. I am asking you like an equal."

Bartimaeus remained stoically silent.

"Man to spirit, come on."

No reply.

"This won't make it easier for the either of us. Just tell us all you know, and we'll see to give you the best justice we can."

"What? My word not good enough for you? You know, I am starting to use patience with you!" he seized the gargoyle by his collarbone. "Eh? ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU!"

"Um, you know, boss?" ventured the 'little fatter' guy. "Maybe he would, like, be more responsive if you spoke on a level like his." He paused for a moment. "Bet it would be better if he was conscious too, sir."

"SECURE!" came a sudden shout, as Nathaniel jerked up from staff-induced rest. "SAFE! SECRET! Yes, I'm OK now!"

He got shakily to his feet from his previous position. Dumped on the ground.

"Ah! One of the possible collaborators!" said the "YOU!" man. "Maybe you can shed some light on this situation?"

"Hmm . . ." mused Nathaniel, inspecting the finished chalk outline. "Yes . . ."

"Yeah?" went the "YOU!" guy.

"Yeah . . ."

"Well?"

"It's obviously . . ."

"Yes?"

"Or it could be . . ."

"No?"

"I think it could be . . ."

"YES?"

"A Greater Armed Legendary Amazonian Mite!"

". . . What?"

"Extremely enlarged, of course. One of my predecessors of my name— my new one, in an alternate universe, of course— catalogued a great deal of this class. Not very relevant, though. What's it supposed to be?"

"THE BEST SONG IN THE WORLD!" screamed Bartimaeus in his sleep, then fell silent again.

The one who bestowed the three wrists burst into tears.

"This is the outline of a victim in an incredible crime," said the "YOU!" man, striking a self-important pose. "And it is my mission to discover who this unfortunate person is, why they have been targeted so, and where they are now!"

"Pardon?" said Nathaniel, raising a puzzled eyebrow. "Did you say—"

"PLAAAY THE BEST SOOONG IN THE WORLD, OR I'LL EAT YOUR SOULS!"

"—'Where they are now'?" Nathaniel continued, ignoring the straw-y demon.

"Yes, of course," said the captain and "YOU!" guy. "We need to determine it is safe."

"Well, it could already be, in a manner of speaking," said Nathaniel, gesturing towards the outline, which at the certain angle, in a certain light, wearing a particular pair of shades after eating a particular kitchen cupboard poison could look like a running dog (The three wrists guy lets out a choking sob), but was what meant to be someone after falling off a high place.

"Because wouldn't it be dead?"

"Dead? Dead?" repeated the "YOU!" man. "What do you mean?"

"The chalk outline, the incredibly high building above us, the, um, atmosphere of the whole area? Would this lead to murder or something?" Nathaniel hazarded a typical long-winded magician's guess (can I fake a Bartimaeus, or can I fake a Bartimaeus?).

The captain guy paused for a moment.

"WHAAAT? DO YOU HAPPEN TO BE AN OFFICER, OR ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME MY JOB!" he demanded, screaming so close to Nathaniel's face even Jessica Whitwell would twitch.

Nathaniel nearly knocked over a wall, but he regained his composure quickly, just in time to get nearly blown over again.

"WELL, YA HEAR ME, BUDDY? I DON'T WANT YOU BLOODY PRODIGY TYPES COME WALTZING AROUND WITH YOUR 'OOO! LOOK AT ME, I'M A BLOODY CHILD GENIUS! I KNOW BETTER THAN ME ELDERS 'COS THEY'RE SO _OLD!_' YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK? I THINK—"

"No, Mr Buttons, there are NO PINCUSHIONS!"

Now Kitty was awake.

"And the rest of the gang is awake!" announced the guy who had produced the loud interjection last time. "So, now, tell us: who is the victim, and what sufferance did it give you to make it like so?"

"Huh?"

"Maybe you know?"

"Who?"

"Alright, mate, you look like the smart one. Can you be of help?"

"No! I identify you as an opposite and . . . you . . . be . . . you be stupid!"

"Nay. We are but djinn, ROCK!"

"Uh, I think we might, uh, need to take them back to base, boss," suggested the 'little fatter' guy.

"Look, it's like unique, OK? Abstract! Sorta surrealist! Dalí never had this problem!"

"Well, if you want to be boss, fine. But if after two weeks of duty some crackpot criminal mastermind follows you home, hides in you car and breaks you legs and stabs you in the eyes with a pen, don't come running and crying to me!" said the captain self-importantly.

"Actually, I believe Dalí had this unsuitable for a PG fic obsession, which sort of marred his genius," said Mr Tipples. "Apart from that, he turned out fine, apart from anti-social behaviour."

"Um, boss, I think that's physically impossible . . ."

"At least Dalí never had to chop off his ear like them stinking post-impressionist people!"

"I'll tell you what's physically impossible and what isn't! Now cart off these kids to the loony bin and bring them to me!"

"Only Van Gogh did that, and it was a token of love . . . although he turned out strange too."

"There's three conversations going and they don't make sense!" Kitty sighed to her left-out self.

"Very well!" Mr "YOU!" shouted over the top of all the shouting. "We will take you back to base, as long as Mr I-Point-Things-Out-to-the-Rest-Of-You has nothing more to say!"

"Yes, sir," said Mr I-Point-Things-Out etc. etc. moodily.

"MONET AND YOUR FANCY SCHMANCY BRUSH STROKES! SEURAT AND YOUR POINTILLISM! PICASSO AND YOUR CRAZY GENRE CHANGES!"

And now, for a crazy genre change!

High above the city streets, something lurks. Something lurks like the thing that lurked at the time that lurking was high form of non-paint based art.

It was a red against the complementary green of middle class. Glazed and fired besides the greenware of society. Fauvism next to Renaissance in the . . . why am I using so many damn art references?

Anyway, it was impossible to say it gloated. It would be impossible to say was arrogant. It would be impossible to say, because that would be too nice to the creature, and downright insulting to multi-billionaires and conmen.

In fact, it didn't even notice the police and magician and boot-wearing girl. It registered the loss of its target with a slightest sliver of disappointment and the greatest dollop of dark glee. It loved a chase.

See, I can write seriously sometimes!

Yes, the City Watch! Their entire purpose in one story is to arrive late to a scene of crime and wonder about it, then accidentally stumble upon a hero who is trying to solve the whole thing but is misunderstood, so they then get beaten senseless by him to protect them or slaughtered by the bad guy to bestow upon the hero an almighty . . .

Wait, Terry Pratchett's already done that. Hang on a sec.

Yes, the Police Force of Fluoride City (doesn't sound as classic . . .)! Their grip upon crime is like Dracula's hold on vampire clichés. They arrive late to the crime if they finish up in time. The uniform is naturally dark so they don't have to change after duty. Heck, even their wage is robbery.

But, anyway, they think they're the laws on these streets and being the ones with legal access to weapons, who will complain? Well, just the mob boss, but he doesn't count, right?

And so, our narrating characters end up at their headquarters in various degrees of health.

"This is it?" questioned Kitty, quite unfairly. If you compared this place to the Resistance headquarters you could certainly pick the one that would get your enemies smited _and_ not fly away in a tornado.

"OW! Stop doing that!" snapped Nathaniel to the spear-toting guy behind him.

"It slipped," he shrugged.

"PAPA, DON'T PREACH!" Bartimaeus yelled in his unconscious state like a certain loudmouthed puppet from a chapter ago.

"DUGONG!" shouted that loudmouthed puppet.

Mr "YOU!" ignored Kitty's question. This would be a good time for an introduction, because I for one am tired of hauling my exhausted fingers across the keyboard to the SHIFT key, then have the other hand stretch to the '/" keys, and then, still holding perilously down the SHIFT key, and laboriously tap out the Y, O, U—

"So, who are you anyway?" asked Kitty.

—And then, oh my lord, still enforce the SHIFT key, and reach across the keyboard, and tap the 1 Buttons once, twice—

"My name is: Frasier-Draco-Almighty-Thrumming-Piano-Chord I barcode 14145 (nee Raw Emotions)—"

NOOO! THAT'S EVEN WORSE!

"—& #1 4LL 7H1N62 L4/FULL—"

NOOO! THAT'S EVEN WORSE THAN EVEN WORSE!

"—And I've got a whole lot of other stuff that can't show on the end, like the elusive "equals sign", and those crazy pointy brackets, and—"

"Er, we'll pretend we didn't hear that, so you have a regular name," suggested Nathaniel. "Before the author foams down her chin onto the keyboard."

"My name is:" stated the Man Formerly Known As Mr "YOU!" . . .

"Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III—"

: Crows flock ominously:

"—Jonathon Stroud—"

:The Disclaimer Demons suddenly appear in the author's room, bringing with them a zucchini of immense proportions, which smashes through her desk:

"Pantalaimon!"

:ROI spins around, whips out a military-banned gun, and launches a barrage of lettuce-sized bullets at the Demons:

"Nigel—!"

:ROI looks up hopefully:

"—Thornberry!"

:Releasing another wave of bullets, ROI kicks up the keyboard, and in the precious moments of time gained by the Demons' reforming, types the following event:

jhgH ew32a as DropopO3ed byyu ass refriREFRI33—

:In the forms of dense shadows, the Demons leapt, gnashing jagged teeth. Cursing as she discovers something jammed in the mechanism, ROI throws the weapon at them, and dives back down to the keyboard:

hE was dropped by a refrigerato—

:The weapon is thrown back, catching ROI in the stomach as she tries to roll away. Gasping for air, she strains to reach the keys . . .:

dfrr—

:The Paperclip Wizard complains. Without cause, it changes the sentence to the following:

The jug was as Droopy owed by end referrer deferred.

A modest sized ceramic mug landed on top of the "YOU!" guy.

"Wow," he said. "I could have sworn my former gang leader smashed that very jug because of me. My name is Droopy, by the way."

:The untested weapon suddenly lets out a terrible, terrible screech—:

ROI: Aw, KUSO!

: —And explodes with a dynamic—:

Bang.

Reboot sector 1 Slave.

LOADING . . . LOADING . . .

Welcome. Thank you for reading, but your thoughts could not be connected. Please check the fanfic, and try again.

Checking Memory . . .

50, 656 bytes,

100, 498 bytes

208, 515 bytes

299, 513 bytes

299, 519 bytes

299, 519.5 bytes

299, 519.75 bytes

299, 519.875

ERROR! ERROR! CORRUPTED INFORMATION!

(root. alternatepov4)

"Darn it!" screamed ROI, as she tried to stick the sawdust that was her desk together. "How the hell does all this happen?"

"It's karma! YOU'RE BEING PUNISHED BY THE HEAVENS FOR YOUR DUGONG RELATED CRIMES!"

"And why do I get stuck with him? I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO DESERVE THIS!" howls the author, who would describe herself as poor and misunderstood if this version supported 00ERROR00 it.

"Perhaps it is within the very nature of OCs," stated Mr Tipples calmly. "While, in the fanfiction world the Canon characters have well defined personalities and roles, the slippery nature of an originally created character plays havoc with the order of the fanfic world, which by meaning contrasts to the OCs' place of origin, the chaotic imaginations of its creators."

"No, you're a . . ." Mr Buttons trailed 00ERROR00 off.

"Thank you so much for that valuable information I should have written down, but what does that mean? The cameo characters from last chapter caused a lot of trouble too," ROI picked up a yoyo and flicked it experimentally. It didn't reach the top, and tangled in its own cord.

"Canon characters put in Original situations may have a lesser effect," Mr Tipples 00ERROR00 said 00ERROR00.

"Ooo . . . I'll have to 00ERROR00 think about that," said ROI, 00ERROR00 the 00ERROR00 computer system.

"00ERROR00!" 00ERROR00 ROI.

"I think it is time to reboot the system," 00ERROR00 Mr 00ERROR00 Mr Tipples 00ERROR00 said.

"I can 00ERROR00 deal," 00ERROR00 said 00ERROR00 ROI.

"No, you're a 00ERROR00! 00ERROR00!" 00ERROR00 Mr Buttons!

"00ERROR00 Maybe 00ERROR00 you're 00ERROR00?"

"I 00ERROR00 it's a 00ERROR00 00ERROR00."

ROI 00ERROR00 the 00ERROR00—

Tried to 00ERROR00

Tried 00ERROR00 00ERROR00

00ERROR00

It's

00ERROR00

Not

00ERROR00

Work00ERROR00ing!

!00ERROR00!

ROI:Suddenly seizing script format, she leaps for the computer tower, and slams the RESET button:

ROI: All right!

Mr Tipples: Good work!

Mr Buttons: No, YOU'RE good work!

ROI:Gloats: See, I can do stuff for myself, you know!

Mr Tipples:Notices lack of reset: Er, it's stuck.

ROI:Spins around: What?

Mr Buttons: No, you're a—

ROI: 00ERROR00!

Mr Buttons: DUGONG!

"Nathaniel?"

"Yeah?"

"We're manatees, aren't we?"

The magician looked down upon his grey and reasonably streamlined self.

"No."

"Good."

There is a pause, as Bartimaeus lazily strokes across the scene.

". . . We're dugongs."

There is a pause.

"AAAHHHH!" screams everybody, until there is a pop, everyone returns to normal, and I pull up a playlist.

Phew. 'Dearly beloved, are you listening . . ?'

"OK," said Kitty, as Nathaniel tried to control his hyperventilating. "What's happening?"

"Ignoring the fact that we were just sudden examples of nearly extinct water mammals?" questioned Bartimaeus, still in dugong form.

"Yes."

Are we demented, or am I disturbed?

"Can I answer that?"

There is a merry WHAM! And Bartimaeus is unconscious once more.

To live and not to breathe; is to die in tragedy . . .

"Let's not answer that," gasped Nathaniel. "Now, are we right in assuming that you have us mistaken for someone else?"

"Yes, maybe— I mean NO!" Droopy suddenly tried to gain some control. "You are hereby accused of the murder of someone not very important!"

"But you said he wasn't dead," pointed out Kitty.

"DO NOT QUESTION ME!" screamed Sergeant Droopy.

"He means _attempted_ murder," Nathaniel clarifies like the necessary smart person he is.

"That's the thing with the dead but not the dead?" asked Droopy, metaphorically spitting all phlegm-ily over generations of good cops, bad cops, and those stereotypical doughnut eating incompetent cops you have to have in every genre for comic relief. Ew.

"I don't care, I won't apologize!" sung the still unconscious djinni in his necessary comic relief way.

"See! See!" Droopy pointed in his necessary demented Original Character way. "Condemned from his very own baleen!"

"That's for whales . . ." Nathaniel sighed.

"And it's a Green Day reference!" Kitty pointed out in her necessary intelligent street-wise way.

"Unlawful use of allusions!" shouted Droopy, pulling out a book.

"Why do I feel that this will be a long interaction?" sighed Nathaniel in his mulling way.

"Why did I agree to any of this?" sighed Kitty in her reckless no-respect-for-my-crows way.

Droopy was an impressively built man, for his unimpressively derived name. He had a muscular form that could have him be anything from Mr Particular Country, a hot bachelor millionaire, or thug number 3. His hair is long and tasseled, and home to that stylish grey hat that his sort ought to wear.

But balance has to be made somewhere.

The door opens. A ceiling fan lazily spins over a practical wooden desk all piled with files and tasteful office toys. Everything is in subdued tones of brown and grey.

"Uh, boss?" said Mr I-Point-etc-etc, sitting at the desk. "We've been through this before. You're room is the _next_ one."

"Ah, sorry."

The door opens. Karma is restored. The walls were papered with a classic racecar over striped background. A rubber punching-clown (those things on weighted bottoms which bounce back and slam you every time to show aggression) stood in a corner. There was a bookcase consisting of one official looking book and a large amount of Disney comics, sticker books and animal piggybanks.

"Now," Droopy walked across black-and-white striped floorboards to his desk, which consisted of a moderate amount of files weighed down by a ceramic moose, a variety of funny shaped stress balls (STRESS BALLS! STRESS BALLS!) and a computer (decorated with party streamers and rhinestones). "Where were we?"

"The author sure plans ahead, doesn't she?" muttered Nathaniel, as the team of football players from several chapters ago walk past behind them.

Hear the dogs howling out of key/to a hymn called "Faith and Misery," . . . MWAHAHAHAA!

"She has to make up for something," said Kitty in her reckless—

"You used that before."

STOP MOCKING ME!

Nathaniel would have answered Droopy's question to move the exchange along, but at the sight of the room with the most horrible feng-shui he went suddenly into a mental arrest, and was only able to concentrate on breathing.

"DON'T WANNA BE AN— Oh! Hello there! Did I miss something?" without anything as a warning, Bartimaeus suddenly returned to the world of prominent characters. He looked around curiously.

". . . Dear Ra. The Other Place had better décor than here."

"AAAHHHH!" screamed Droopy. "It's the prophecy!"

"He means 'perpetrator'," muttered Nathaniel in his necessary explaining-person way.

"Did the Other Place have racecar wallpaper?" questioned Bartimaeus in his necessarily applied oblivion. "Wait . . . was I even there?"

"DROOPY!" yelled You.

"They meant: '"YOU!" yelled Droopy'," corrected Nathaniel again.

"I'm lost from my plot! Am I still a djinni? Am I even myself?" cried Bartimaeus in his unnecessary and unusual soul searching way.

"I'm . . . not sure what that all meant . . ." admitted Nathaniel.

"If everybody would please shut up—" tried Kitty.

"She means: "If there was a chance for everybody to calm down and let each other speak," Nathaniel censored in a very Virgo-like way.

"WHAT IS MY PURPOSE IN LIFE?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

"DUGONG!"

"YOU!"

"OI!"

EVERYBODY SHUT UP OR I'LL DROP MORE ANIME CHARACTERS ON YOU!

Everybody shut up.

"So, um, what's going on?" asked Kitty.

OK, we're good. On holiday . . .

"YOU!" yelled You, I mean, Droopy (caught myself there).

"She means: "Often repeated joke until nauseas—"

Hmm, Haru-san, Zelgadiss-dono, Xelloss-sama or a really angsty Tsukasa?

"—Sorry. Means what it says."

Another protestor has crossed the line . . .

"YOU!" repeated Droopy for the umpteenth time. "You are the murderer! The one who killed—"

"—The . . . the . . . Isn't anyone going to correct me?"

Ahem.

"Sorry! I thought you didn't want me to interrupt."

Speak.

"Alright, alright, make up your—"

SPEAK, DOG!

"Dugong!"

Shut up!

"You mean the accused for an attempted murder!" Kitty shouts over the narrating squabble. "Because the person isn't dead, and there is no proof that it was Bartimaeus was the one to do it!"

"NOT TRUE!" Droopy shouts over the shouting over the narrating shouting. "I have a perfectly reasonable reason for my deduction!"

That got everybody's incredulous attentions.

"Pardon me," said Bartimaeus, in his necessary contrasting smart way. "But taken from the evidence of the past . . . entirety of the chapter, being your introduction from 'YOU!' guy to a hurriedly named 'Droopy', you would hardly seem like the type to have reasonable conclusions."

There is silence, except for the glaring of a dozen crows from the window.

"Alright. One, the subject in question disappeared about the time that you showed up. Two, you, a strangely constructed scarecrow, looks the strongest out of your team, against your spooky-looking magician and scary-looking girl companion."

The spooky looking magician and scary-looking girl— whoops, I mean, Nathaniel and Kitty glowered. Caught myself again!

("Just keep quiet, we'll get her at the disclaimers," Kitty muttered to the swelling magician.)

"I'd repeat my previous comment, but I'd only sound self-important again, and I really don't want to degrade my superior self to that," stated Bartimaeus.

"Three! We have evidence that it was a djinni who was responsible for the damage noted at the scene!" Droopy shouted over them. Again.

"I'd repeat my previous comment, but I'd rather point to the window and let the nice author work out a really good gag."

"Good Day, Droopy," said Hodge, flying past the window with spines glowing purple in the sunset.

"Here's today's report, Mr Droopy," Mwamba said, tossing a stack of papers through the door with her dexterous tail.

"Can I get a cameo again?" asked Farquarl, before he was dragged away by Xerxes and Bartuk.

"Er, on second thoughts, the ideas came from Mr Pointy," said Droopy, pointing next door.

"Uh, I have a name you know," said Mr Pointy. "It's—"

"Never mind. All we want to do is get past this stupid city and go to the Pyrite City to go home, get dumb, and get heartless," said Kitty, turning around. "Come on, guys. Let's—"

"Pyrite City?" Droopy exclaimed, standing up. "To see the Wizard of Ahz?"

"Yeah?" said Kitty, hesitantly.

"The Wizard of Ahz . . . you know, what I really want?" Droopy questioned wistfully.

". . . More . . . courage?"

"No. To arrest you all and prevent you from going!" With a snap of his strong and moisturized fingers, Droopy summoned a whole bunch of pike-carrying guys who just seemed to pop out of the shadows. Considering the story this was based on, that may not be far from the truth.

"Actually, we operate of the Eighth Plane, the plane of—"

Silence!

"It is against our Code to let wanted criminals out of our city unless in many pieces and floating down the river," stated Droopy, standing up tall and straight and impressive. "And so, it is my Duty, to lock you up without relevant evidence, a consideration of human rights, in a cell without ventilation, a mattress or a plumbing system!"

"What? I have to get locked up in a cell with these two!" Kitty gasped. "No! You inhuman monster!"

"MWAHAHA— Oh, damn. Not a villain. Anyway, too bad. You're gunna be there for life. Unless there is a slight chance that you could prove your innocence . . ." Droopy reflected.

"Wait," gasped Nathaniel, as Kitty fought off the pike-people with fists, feet and teeth. "If we can prove that we had nothing to do with the crime, we can go free?"

"What? Really?" asked Droopy.

"All we need to do is find this guy who is still alive and get him to clear our names," Nathaniel thought as quick as one who is doomed to spend his life locked up in a tiny place where the dregs of fanfic writers have their fun.

("DUGONG!"

You will die very painfully if I hear that again.)

"Yes! Please! Let us do that!" Nathaniel begged. "If you could just give us a week, we could find the person and— OW!" One of Kitty's kicks had gone slightly off course, and smashed into the back of his skull.

"Oops. Oh dear, looks like that hurt. But I am forced to agree with you," Kitty admitted. "Otherwise I'll be stuck with you."

"With a canon pairing? That'll be boring," said Bartimaeus in his necessary diluted author's opinion way.

"Hmm . . . I suppose that makes sense," said Droopy, checking his book that was not a compilation of Disney cartoons.

"Great! Let's go!" said Bartimaeus enthusiastically, currently the target of seven bad ends of pikes.

"No. Not you," said Droopy, shaking a finger as Bartimaeus's face fell all messily over the floor in the literal djinni way of djinn. "You're the main suspect, and we need leverage to make sure your two companions will come back."

Kitty looked at Nathaniel.

"Pyrite City?"

"Pyrite City."

Two very heavy set crows suddenly swoop over their heads, pulling out enough hair to make a decent comb-over.

"Sorry, sorry, yeah. We'll come back," Kitty said.

"All we need to do is find the target, right? Who is it?" asked Nathaniel, with tears in his eyes not caused from the unspeakable injustice stated a few paragraphs before.

"Well," said Droopy, standing up in an important-character-who-is-about-to-state-an-important-fact way. "It is no less than . . . than . . . excuse me . . ."

Fine, fine.

/Drum roll/

"The Cowardly Lion!"

"Ah! So, who are they?" Nathaniel said, suddenly enlightened.

"The Cowardly Lion!"

"Who?"

"The Cowardly Lion?"

"Yes!"

"The Cowardly Lion!"

Silence.

"Any other name?" Kitty asked, cautiously.

". . . Not that we know of."

"Well, how do you know it's the Cowardly Lion?" demanded Kitty, looming over the man in a short-character-looming-over-a-taller-one way.

Droopy was unable to speak. He pointed rapidly to a pile of papers on his desk.

They were letters. They said, in crudely cut magazine letters:

cOW-AR-d-ly L-oi-N ! Il comm To g37 Yuu ?

That meant: "You of the name of Cowardly Lion! It is my intention to come to your current location and take you away, possibly to mine, or perhaps an abandoned warehouse depending on my financial situation." Broadly.

"That's from the attempting murderer?" Nathaniel asked in affirmation.

"THERE YOU GO, ALL PROLIFIC-TYPE AGAIN!"

"You mean— never mind."

"So, all we have to do is find this guy with three wrists or something—"

From two doors down comes a choking sob.

"—And we'll be clear?"

"No!" said Droopy.

"No?" went the assemblage.

"No. Then you must take it to the mountain, and drop it in the volcano where it was forged!"

Silence. Again.

"We'll just go now," said Nathaniel and Kitty, extracting themselves from scene.

"Wait! Don't leave me!" cried Bartimaeus in his uncharacteristic pitiful way.

"DUGONG!" cried out Mr Buttons, in his unnecessary but sadly characteristic interrupting way.

Please stay tuned for our next installment, coming . . . when it comes. It's coming, I'm sure. I'll just have to heave my . . . onto my chair and pull up my . . . and start typing . . . /Head slumps on desk/ I'm tired.

Anna returns through door, brushing off a liberal covering of black feathers. "What are you complaining about? You didn't just have to walk six car parks and a mall."

/Tries to lift head/ Senior . . . life . . . so . . . scary . . . Responsibilities . . . too big.

"Oh, please," says Anna dismissively, grimacing at the white stains on her black suit that definitely wasn't ice-cream. "It would just about the time to reveal what a terrible scatterbrain you . . . crows-crows-crows . . ."

ROI pauses as the crows assemble, without her knowledge, in a semicircle around Anna. "You're right. Well, you're wrong. Now's the time to show everybody what a dutiful and organized person I can be! I can prove to myself and everybody that I have what it takes to get . . . wherever it is I'm going . . . whenever it is I'll go . . . whatever I feel I will . . . Anyway! Me! Yay!"

"Crows . . . crows . . ." mutters Anna. "Crows . . . crows . . ."

"That's right!" I say, switching to first-person, the narration of kings and djinni . . . and really successful people . . . and bad high-school stories . . . But nevertheless!

"Crows . . . crows . . . DAMN THOSE CROWS!" Anna suddenly screamed, taking out her Hook of Bruised Souls, and started swiping at my retribution-ers. "I'LL GET YOU!"

"And no matter the work . . . the time . . . the effort . . . the guilt . . . the under-appreciation . . . the . . . the . . ."

"CROWS! CROWS! CROWS!" Anna screams as she swipes at the crows.

"The . . . the . . . I'M SO SORRY ANNA!"

"Huh?" went Anna, as I fling myself at her feet.

"I'm sorry I don't appreciate you! I'm sorry I leave all this work for you! I'm sorry I gave all the treasury money to Lina so she'd take Zelgadiss back to his world! I'm sorry I am reduced to script format so often!"

The most inspired thing Anna can come up with is a: "Huh?"

"And I just want to say . . . that update time's been and gone, and we've got to get cracking."

As I narrate boldly, Anna blinks and wishes that her headache had lasted a day longer so she could have stayed home.

"OK! We'll do the disclaimer, mention a few things about the competition and the next chapter, and we're gone! Donald! Tony! Disclaimer! Now!"

The set springs to life as my restored /4D 4U7H0R 5K1LLZ seep into every damaged and slight ravaged corner. "I feel great! And because this feeling will be gone in the morning, I can say nice things and forget about them!"

I point to Donald, who is carrying the Disclaimer notes. "You! You're patient and passive comic relief! I like you!"

I point to Tony, who is standing there useless. "You! You're . . . comic relief and . . . I pay you. I like you! Now! Disclaimers!"

The crows, the lovely, loyal, and liked crows, helpfully rush the two boys out of my way.

"Alright! I do not own 'The Bartimaeus Trilogy', 'The Wizard of Oz', mp3s, MIDIs, that 'Life Strategies Stuff', the English language, the 'Might and Magic' games, 'Tribute' by Tenacious D, surrealists, post- impressionists/expressionists/cubists artists, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, Kelly Osbourne's 'Papa Don't Preach'— I can see why this is annoying— ah, any Green Day references, or the anime FLCL, the Slayers or .hack, thank you!"

ROI wheezes, noting that she should consider a better way to do the disclaimers while still in a good mood.

Nope, can't think of anything.

Anyway, **REMINDER!**

I still have that **competition-type thing**, where you have to **submit the life lessons you learnt from the Bartimaeus Trilogy**. I'd appreciate them **dreadful much!**

Now, next chapter!

ROI/Psyching up all Haruko style/

Ooo . . . YEAH! You know, this Cowardly Lion type is hardly going to walk up to the office like some walking-up guy. That means our guys have to go search for it! But who might it be? Here's some teasers . . .

Sholto Pinn . . . or, his djinni Simpkin, who is the very essence of cowardice in the eyes of other djinni, but also a link to his very rich master. Could the murderer want his money?

Nick, who displays cowardice in large amounts, and already knows Kitty. Perhaps the murderer wants the Resistance?

Or Mr Pennyfeather, who's got even more control and influence over the Resistance, but he's a tough nut to crack . . .

Or maybe it's none of these I just mentioned, 'cause I like messing with ya.

See ya later, fans!


	7. Where in the World PART II

"Taking turns pumping the pedals

Passing over bowing sunflowers

Taking in the steady wind, yeah, as if we could fly."

(That line from the Ruroni Kenshin second season theme that originally popped into my head, more on that later.)

Well, this is the second instalment of 'Where In the World is the Cowardly Lion?' and I must say don't I feel posh. Could be a saga even!

I got a short amount of reviews, but I ain't complaining.

Last time, on the Wizard of Ahz! (Always wanted to say that . . .)

"Having some trouble?"

"CAUSE YOU'RE GUNNA HAVE A HELL OF A LOT MORE, NOW!"

The authoress known as Rune-of-Iormangand lifted her head from the keyboard.

"Yeah," she said. "Pretty much."

"MAY YOU SUFFER IN YOUR INSECURITY!"

:Violent action:

"You keep sugar packets in there?"

"Here we have perfect scenario for a deviation from the parody!" explained Mr Tipples enthusiastically. "An entire chapter dedicated to your study of particular characters and how they would fit the suit for the Cowardly Lion!"

"Great!" ROI shoved away a stack of senior homework and slipped a disk into her computer. "Thanks! Let's get it going! CAN YOU HEAR THE SOUNDS OF HYSTERIA?"

"You're welcome!"

"Dugong!"

"YOU! YOU MURDERING GARGOYLE!"

"Who, me?" asked our Scarecrow.

:Bonk:

"Thank you!" said Nathaniel and Kitty simultaneously.

:Bonk:

"Thanks!" says Kitty.

:Bonk:

Something large and scary lurks like lurkers of today would be proud to lurk as . . .

"So, if we don't find this person was supposed to be murdered, but wasn't, Bartimaeus spends the rest of his life in a terrible cell?"

"Yes."

"OK!"

"With you guys."

"Let's go, magician."

—But, of course, this recount is nothing compared to my venerable wit in the chapter beforehand, so check that out before reading on. Maybe drop another review, or perhaps a suggestion for my **"All I Ever Needed to Know in Life I Learned From the Bartimaeus Trilogy!" List! ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?**

And so, without much further ado, we have for you . . .

Where is the World is the Cowardly Lion? PART II!

(Always wanted to do that . . .)

Fluoride City! The City of Viziers, Grand Priests, Advisers to the Kings and all other unsavoury cliché types! Built on the once-beautiful-now-kin-to-a-river-devised-by-the-honourable-Terry-Pratchett Munchkin River, it is a sprawling, er, sprawl, that sprawls wide, filled with buildings and stuff. Big buildings! Filled with bad people!

And, speaking of bad people . . .

"NOOOO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO MEEE!" howled Bartimaeus, as he was hauled down the deepest depth of the Police Force of Fluoride City's Headquarters.

"Oh, yes we can," said a tall, lanky man, who was doing the least hauling.

"Oh, no you can't," shot back Bartimaeus.

"Oh, yes we can," said the partner of the lanky man, who was the part-time bouncer type, pulling out a black volume from his dark uniform. "It sez right here, right here, ah, dat we can keep suspects in custody for a certain amount of time."

"And 'cause your friends are out proving your innocence, you should be grateful," mentioned the tall one. "Speaking of which, I wonder how they are going?"

"Yes. I wonder," mused the bouncer type.

I _can_ write my own joining scenes, you know!

So now we go and see what our heroes have been doing while Bartimaeus was being dragged and stuff and—

Oh.

"How are you going?" Kitty asks tiredly.

"Ah, Subject 1, no. Subject 2, visually possible, but no. Subject 3 was just chased away by a motorcycle gang. Subject 4 tried to bite my leg. Subject 5 was inanimate. Subject 6, there is _no_ Subject 6. And you happen to be Subject 7. Any luck?" Nathaniel says, as if he was born to do this sort of work.

"No. What are we supposed to be looking for again?"  
"The Cowardly Lion."

"Who is?"

"The Cowardly Lion?"

"Yes!"

"The Cowardly Lion!"

Silence.

"My hypothesis is all I have," says Nathaniel, meaning he didn't have any idea about what he should be doing either.

"Yeah. Me too," sighed Kitty.

Nathaniel unclipped the paper from his clipboard and tossed them vaguely towards a bin. They were snatched up by homeless Harvard professors before they even hit the ground.

"You know, we really need more information," mused the magician, showing not a hint of caring towards the cruel and unhappy world around him, but we won't draw attention to that because then he'll realize he doesn't need less kokoro, and we'll be down a Tin Man.

"What's that?"

Nothing! Only that you hair's real purdy with all the gel.

"What gel?"

"OK, so it's a Cowardly Lion. That could be a title or a nickname," Kitty said, ticking off a plan in her head she had made long ago to help search for mysterious characters in the London undergrowth. "We need a motive . . ."

Perhaps the fact that she was sharing Commoner wisdom with a magician was amended by the fact that Nathaniel wouldn't listen anyway.

"Perhaps it is a snitch who blabbed on something important on someone. Perhaps they are looking for revenge . . ."

"Perhaps he a threat to the higher powers of the city . . ." mused Nathaniel.

"Or _she_," Kitty corrected.

"Or _he_," Nathaniel repeats.

"Well, because there's been all this theorizing about how it's male, and only male examples, so because of irony, it _must_ turn out to be a female," said Kitty, proud of her deduction.

"Well, possibly," Nathaniel allowed. "But there is still a 50 percent chance that it is male. Also, most of the characters of the Bartimaeus Trilogy are male, as well as those Cowardly Lion types. And, also, if it had been female, then she would have been dubbed the Cowardly _Lioness_ by the author. There is very little material for irony."

Kitty was silent. I was considering nicer treatment for Nathaniel.

"I agree, Mr Buttons," she says to her puppet. "Anyway, let's start talking to people again."

Meanwhile, back at the Headquarters of the Fluoride Police, Sergeant Droopy was deeply absorbed in some serious work.

"Darn it! What's eight letter word for a position in the army? With-guns?"

"Er, sergeant?" said the guy next-door who likes to point things out and since last chapter has been called Mr Pointy and given no description otherwise.

"Hey, I do have a name and appearance, you know," says Mr Pointy. "It's—"

"That's it! You there!" Sergeant Droopy, the rather disappointing but handsome leader of the Fluoride Police Force so warped that he must be a caricature of a stereotype, rudely indicated.

(It should be noted that, if any acquaintances of ROI are browsing past this section, that she has nothing but the utmost respect for them, but that they should be really worried.)

(It should also be noted that ROI just likes messing with people. She would never criticise them.)

(So obviously, anyway.)

(Under such an obvious name.)

(But there're other important things, so let's go on.)

"Are we on? Are we on? OK, there was some interference there. Anyway. You there! What do you want?" Sergeant Droopy rudely indicated.

Mr Pointy sighed deeply. "Sir, I have come to inform you that there is more evidence of malicious intent against our unlocated victim."

"Ah-ha! Another one! Malicious . . . intent . . . again— no . . . against, that's it . . . our . . . unlocated . . . no, it doesn't fit!"

Droopy bent over his crossword in concentration, and Mr Pointy did so because of a bad feeling in his gut.

"No . . . Seven down, twelve letters, two words, title of the guy who knows who he is who is and is going to be killed in a variety of messy and pre-Victorian ways. With thumbscrews. Eight letters first word, four letters second . . ."

Mr Pointy closed his eyes in pain at his placing as a throwaway character with no real name.

"But I nearly got that other one. Three across, reason whys we gunna kill him. Dunno about letters, just squeeze 'em in."

"_Now_ how am I going to finish this and win myself a collection of door jams?" asked Droopy sorrowfully.

"_Now_ what are we going to do with our prisoner?" asked Mr Pointy pointlessly.

"Take it."

"No!"

"_Take it_!"

"NO!"

"TAKE IT!"

"NOOOO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! IT'S INHUMAN!"

"For the lord's sake, just take the bloody Queen of Spades so we can play another trick!" cried the tall man in frustration. "And be a man about it!"

"But I'm not a man!" pointed out Bartimaeus, trying to buy himself enough time to steal a few of the bouncer guy's cards.

"Look. You lost the trick, you get the cards. IT'S THE RULES, OK!"

"But it's not fair! I only played the King of Spades!"

"Yeah, and I played the Queen, which is lower. If Bouncer or Ratty had played an Ace of Spades, they would have got it but they were too _smart_ to play such a high card first!"

"Look, what makes you think I don't have a plan already— ARRGH! LET GO OF MY ARM!"

"You weren't trying to steal a look at me cards, were you?" asked Bouncer suspiciously, who had gotten rid of an Ace of Hearts just then and so was safe.

"Well, no, you see— ARRGH! I WAS JUST TRYING TO STEAL THEM!"

"You can't do that! All the hands have to be equal!" Lanky Guy explained another aspect of the rules that shouldn't have been worried about.

"While it is interesting learning how to play this four-person card game, I have to remind you that this is a fanfic, which should not become educational," stated Ratty, who was a two-foot tall lean rat with a pay check equal to that of Lanky and Bouncer since the Mammal-apart-from-the-inconclusive-marsupial-monotreme-or-marine-mammal-Rights-Act of '05.

"Right! Take those cards, or I'll smash your head in!" said Lanky, effectively drawing the scene from attention.

Now would be a good time to see where Nathaniel and Kitty were, but just before we do, let's check out my suspenseful writings!

In a warehouse that quite effectively captured the atmosphere of an old and chilly cave hidden in ancient mountains, the thing that lurked beforehand arrived in a gush of hot and stuffy air.

The previously alone occupant of the warehouse turned ponderously around.

"Did you find him?" he enunciated clearly, as if he had to consider how to form every sound precisely outside his mouth.

'Find' was an iffy enough term in the lurking thing's mind. It would have been happy if 'find' was used to hunt down something and kill it. To hunt down something and not kill it gave it a vague feeling of un-satisfaction.

". . . No?" it hazarded, aware enough that itself wouldn't like it, but it's master . . .

Unfortunately it was too dark to make out a narrative opinion of the master's reaction, but we plough on nonetheless. The master's eyes narrowed.

"No?" he repeated crisply.

The lurker searched his memory banks in a hurry.

". . . Yes?" it hoped.

The master already had his eyes narrowed, but now he ever so slightly lowered his lids as if relaxing.

The lurker felt a weird feeling just below its—

"ARRGH!"

. . . Let's just say, it won't be racing motorbikes for a while now.

"FIND HIM, FLUSH HIM OUT, AND FOR THE LORD'S SAKE, GET BETTER PANTS!"

What is it with djinn and pants? Can't they have pockets?

"OUT!" with an appalled shout, a housewife-type shoved the two teenagers out of her door.

"But, ma'am, you don't understand. I'm a magician—" before Nathaniel could complete his badly-placed plea, a heavy metal saucepan was thrown out the door, and because certain people have threatened to hurt me, he ducked just in time, having Kitty get it in the face.

"I don't think that fans will appreciate this either," said Mr Tipple, as Kitty straightened in an almost black magic way.

"Oh, but I'll appreciate this. Take that!"

:The saucepan, defying all laws of physics and narration, spins out and knocks the author off her chair.:

Alright, is everybody happy _now?_ That's your first favour, OK?

"Er, thanks. Now where do we go?"

Kitty was checking her teeth. "How should I know? Why don't we see what those police know?"

Pause.

"Because they _are _the ones that got the note, and the authority, and the search warrants and . . ."

Embarrassed silence.

"That was my next idea," Nathaniel lied smoothly. "Let's go."

Of course, Kitty was checking the alignment of her nose and ignoring Mr Buttons, so she couldn't comment.

They walked— well, really, it was that Kitty and Nathaniel walked in the same direction with about the same intentions, but not at all with any sort of allegiance. Anyway, they walked coincidently side-by-side in the same direction, when there was a sudden explosion somewhere above them.

The cause appeared to be a shattered and smoking window across the street.

This was followed by an amazing scream, which sounded like a cross between a comical howl, yodel, and terrible Idol attempt. There was another explosion, one that sounded bigger and worse aimed, and a bathtub immediately shot out at Nathaniel in a blur of narrating necessity.

My battle of whether to let him get hit and subject myself to many painful uses of cutlery was resolved when the magician ducked to let the tub fly over him and plough into Kitty.

Damn. Now I'm down a Dorothy. That makes things twice as hard to work with compared to the simple absence of a Tin Man.

"What was that?" asked Nathaniel.

Nothing. You've got snappy reflexes for a plastic-wrapped magician.

"Yeah," said Nathaniel proudly.

You've got no . . . blind spots or anything? Achilles heel? Beloved family members?

"No."

Of course, of course. Please help Kitty up, if you don't mind.

"It appears we may have found our Cowardly Lion," Nathaniel remarked as he dragged Kitty up by touching as small a piece as he can, ending up supporting her by the sleeve of her jacket. "As well as its attempting murderer."

Kitty, not being a particularly comic character, had only a pounding head, glared at him.

"Well, _duh!_" she stated viciously, as another scream so high it was unidentifiable to be male or female pierced the air.

Another explosion blew out a portion of the wall.

"Shouldn't we . . . do something?" asked Kitty, as she accepted a glass with dissolved aspirin because I felt sorry for her and her incredibly pointy silver disk.

The entire front of the building collapsed in a cloud of obscuring dust.

"I suppose so," mused Nathaniel. "We do want to get out of the city, after all."

The gibbering passed out of human range.

"Well then, shouldn't we hurry up?" asked Kitty in annoyance. "And is this non-drowsy?"

There is a high-pitched squeal, followed by an equally high-pitched "NO-NO-NO-NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!" and a blur leapt out of the front, and screamed past Nathaniel and Kitty with a cloud of dust.

The two look after it.

"I think we just missed an opportunity," said Kitty.

"OPPORTUNITY!" screamed Nathaniel, triggered by a traumatising memory from his days with Jessica Whitwell that won't be explained here.

Fluoride City, Jamboree Street, that window with the pink streamers around it, perfectly placed for a good sniper shot.

In his room of bad flowing chi, Sergeant Droopy was sitting in front of his desk of which whose contents I will not describe to destroy the illusion of authority.

Anyway, logged into his account, Sergeant Droopy was searching his data files for important information to help him expand his mind and opinions.

"Run away!"

"RUN AWAY!"

"MOO!"

"BWA HA HA HAA!" he screamed in laughter, as the sweaty and dusty Nathaniel and Kitty burst through the door.

"YOU!" said Nathaniel, so tired he referred to an exhausted joke. "We . . . have . . . news and . . ." he then collapsed, illustrating the terrible health of the average magician.

Droopy hurriedly closed his animation, revealing his Tokyo Mew-Mew background. "Yes? What?"

"We've seen the Cowardly Lion!" said Kitty, hardly gasping at all, illustrating the great health of the Resistance.

"Really?" said Droopy, shoving all his Disney Comics into a drawer.

"And where he lived!"

"Really?"

"And the attempting murderer?"

"Really? What did they look like?" asked Droopy eagerly.

"Well, we couldn't really tell through all the dust," Kitty admitted, as Nathaniel tried to soundlessly beg for a paper bag.

"Oh? So where did you see all this?" asked Droopy, then paused. "Ah, you haven't been here long, and probably don't know the streets. Do you know any landmarks around the area?"

"Sure. That smoking apartment block.

"Which smoking apartment block?"

"The one where they were attempting murder."

Droopy suddenly flung open a window, knocking off an attempting successor assassin. He scrutinized the horizon.

"What, over there?"

"No, it's a bit closer."

"Not near the sock factory!"

"No, it's more to the right."

"Oh! Right there!"

". . . No, that's the insurance building."

"DAMN IT ALL!"

"It's across the street from that."

Droopy looked sagely over the gently smoking landscape, and a breeze caught his hair and rippled it in what was surely Shortlist winning way. The knocked-off assassin groaned, hanging one-handed off a windowsill in a way that could be fascinating and suspensive _if I felt like it!_

"I think," said Droopy, in a clearly expressed way. "That I must get my mid-morning strawberry-and-banana milkshake."

I must be nuts. Strawberry and banana don't go together in any way!

"If they were in a fancy dessert— but that is besides the point. Anyway, we have proven that someone else is after the Cowardly Lion guy, so if you don't mind, can we take our Scarecrow and go?" asked Nathaniel in a . . . rather nondescript way, if you compare.

Droopy had somehow psychically connected with the secretary down the hall, who had predicted this and started the coffee machine perking just in time to deliver into him in the matter of a paragraph.

Then all these explanations were wasted as Droopy took one sip, made a face, and tipped the coffee out the window and onto the head of the assassin that had been carefully levering himself up,

"Oh, God no. I AM JUST UNAPPRECIATED!"

That was Jenkins by the way, but currently he is flat on the pavement in a comic in-pain-but-not dead way, and so we will be unable to appreciate his visit.

Say aww everybody. _Aww_ . . .

"Yes!" announced Droopy to anyone within earshot, which is a lot of people; since the walls are cardboard thin around here. On days when the air is still, you could hear a barbershop quartet locked in a cupboard from the dungeons.

"Sweet Adeline . . ."

"We must be prepared to take this suffering person in for his protection," stated Droopy, turning around with an impressive sweep of his trench coat, with had pink-tinted lace and embroidered fluffy rodents around the hems.

"_Sweet Adeline_ . . ."

"State the name of the building where the subject was last seen," Droopy commanded Kitty, and if he weren't one of my beloved OCs, he would have ended up out the window and on Jenkins's back.

"My Adeline . . ."

"We can't," said Nathaniel. "It was in a poor and magician-sparse part of the city. Plus we've never been here before and it was destroyed."

"_My Adeline_ . . ."

"Then we must use the awesome collective power of the human mind to run a series of attributes through a survey to select a group of individuals of relevant hits," said Droopy boldly.

"I'm out of lines. Anything else we can do until they let us out?"

"Which means?" sighed Kitty, preparing for a necessary gag at the expense of somebody's pride.

"Mama . . . just killed a man . . . put a gun against his head . . . pulled the trigger . . . Now he's dead . . ."

"We're going to use the Web!" said Droopy cheerfully, walking back to his computer.

"I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me!"

And so he signed on— using the name DrDroopy— entered his password— which was PrincessPeachRulz— that's 'rules' with a 'Z'—cracked the code of the obelisks in Might and Magic VIII— which basically outlines you've got to kill a Great Unicorn on a particular day in summer to get a treasure— and logged on his home-page, which was the Official Pokemon Website— which I haven't visited in ages.

"Galileo!"

"Alright . . . Cowardly . . . Lion . . . Any other distinguishing features you may have saw?"

"_Galileo!_"

"Erm, fast," Nathaniel tried to recall.

"Galileo!"

"High-pitched," said Kitty, recalling her headache.

"_Galileo, let me go!_"

"Fast, high-pitched, headache inducing," Droopy typed in with his glitter sprinkled yellow keyboard.

"Magnifico!"

"No! I do not mean 'migraines'! Hey! Since when did I have a site dedicated to me? I am not high-pitched!"

"_Oh! Oh! Oh_— Hey! Check this out!"

"Alright! By using the person-finding option on Yahoo, registered trademark of the Yahoo Corporation, I have brought up a list of the entities sharing those attributes!"

"Hmm, that looks interesting. Let's try it out!"

"You don't have to narrate," said Kitty, since they've got an author to do that (hi again!). "So, who are they?"

"OK, just drop down here and— WHOA!"

"Alright, first we must go through the process of elimination," said Droopy, as the off-scene barber shop gag dropped off into places unknown. "Before I select a group of suspects!"

Kitty nearly missed her line. "Oh! But who is there?"

And as your attention flows my way, I smoothly pull up a list with names and attributes and prepare to type it out:

Print doc

Rewrite masks

Prepare costumes—

Hey! That's not it! That's my preparation list for my documentary drama that was due last week!

I got it in on time, don't worry. I just totally froze on the last scene _that I stayed up for over an hour researching and writing and—_

Sorry, sorry. My fault. My bad. We'll get back on track, and I'll clean my desk, and _where did my hairbrush go?_

"Well, there's a Nicholas Drew . . . but he has no fixed address, and no comic worth whatsoever.

Then there could be Jane Farrar . . . although with Lioness tendencies, is quite bold, and currently occupied in an ominous tower to the west . . ."

"Mm-hmm, mmm, no, not that ugly colour, it'll look like a nursery. No, of course I won't go with just black! It's cliché, stereotypical, spiritually draining and— really, it'll go with all my outfits?"

Jane Farrar glanced around her soon-to-be ominous tower.

"It's a start," she begrudged of her currently pale yellow room. "Just make sure you extract the gargoyles _totally_ from the— I don't care if they accent my atmosphere, I hate— well, I suppose if you replace them with wolves . . ."

Suddenly she looked up, and drops her slim latest-thing mobile. "Oh, KUSO! I didn't realize I was getting another scene! I am not ready!"

She dashes off in a flurry of mud mask and thickly conditioned towel-wrapped hair.

"Are we on?"

"Yeah. That scene thing's been playing up for ages. She needs to upgrade to the latest model."

No! It's too expensive, hard to find, and I don't like its graphics!

"Excuse me? I think we must be moving on now?"

"Right, right. Now, where were we? Ah, yes! Process of elimination! If we just put a few iron maidens out, and pipe out Madonna hits, the major members of the council will be sure to— whoops, other list.

"OK, there's a Mr Pennyfeather, as he puts on a good act, but he is really inoffensive, non-comic, and currently based in Munchkin City . . ."

"Three of those extra long-handled paintbrushes, please."

"Of course, sir. I am glad they are working out for you."

"Sure, sir! I can reach right to the top of the frame, now!"

"Hmm. Business is good," sighed Mr Pennyfeather. "And now I am away from those dreadful magicians, I have time to pursue my dream."

He smiled.

"I am going to be the latest Idol!" he claimed, standing up on his counter, accepting a microphone and better threads from a fast stage hand.

". . . Hang on, his comic rating is just . . ."

"Curse it! My back! Now I'll have to accept a life of surreptitious resistance!"

"What about it?"

"Nothing, false alarm.

"But here there's a Ptolemy—!"

There is a low boom from below the complex.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

". . . Nothing. But the rest of the list seems to be reasonable."

Kitty rubbed her ears as Nathaniel shakily collected himself from the floor.

"Right. Do we need to go out with the teams to help identify the victim?" she asks.

Droopy stared at her.

"I don't understand the question."

"I mean," said Kitty slowly. "Do we—" she gestured to herself and the rapidly composure-generating magician, "Need—" she gestured begging, "To go—" she gestured walking with her fingers, "With your—" she pointed to Droopy, "Men—" she whipped off a helmet and truncheon from the desk, "To identify—" she whipped out an ensemble of tartan flapped hat, trench coat and magnifying glass, "The victim of an incredibly brutal crime?" She punched Nathaniel.

It took about a minute for Droopy to process this. Out of spite I didn't offer Nathaniel an aspirin.

"No," he said finally. "You are—" he pointed to Kitty and the stunned Nathaniel, "Going—" he gestured walking with his fingers, "To go—" he made aeroplane wings with his arms, "Out—" he made chicken wings, "To do it—" he hopped in a circle on one foot, "By yourselves!" he then did a magnificent back flip combo that could have won him something in the Olympics.

"Ta da!" he sung, sticking the landing.

Kitty found herself applauding, then stuck her arms by her side in annoyance.

"Alright! I'll do it myself then!" she snapped, spinning on her heel and heading for the door.

"Wait!" called Nathaniel, hauling himself off the floor before crashing into the wall. "You can't go on your own!"

Kitty paused, and turned. You could almost imagine coloured bubbles between them.

"You need me!" said Nathaniel.

The background violins tremor . . . a flute reached an incredibly high trill . . .

"After all, a common Commoner would never have the skills necessary for proper referencing."

The violins screech. I trail off after a while, and after quickly cleaning the mouthpiece (which I have to take apart to do), continue typing.

Kitty gave him a disgusted look, and walked out.

Nathaniel looked in confusion at Droopy.

"The great question that has never been answered is 'What does a woman want?'" said Droopy solemnly.

Nathaniel's eyes widened.

"What did you just say?" he asked.

"We are the knights who say 'Ni!' Ni!" said Droopy cheerfully.

Nathaniel nodded in content, took the list, and followed Kitty.

And now for something completely different!

The barbershop quartet tumbled helplessly through the air. For brief moments the strangest objects would pause next to them in their similar descent, then continue about their business, not unlike the start of the second chapter, except less restrained.

A spotted cow wearing a straw hat paused from free falling, took a sip from her fruit cocktail, and watched as they suddenly accelerated.

Now observe the little-known-of migration of the socks. The five examples of different colour combinations circled briefly around the falling quartet. The bass reached out for one in curiously, startling the entire flock so that they flew away with ripples of red, blue, orange and a cross breed of stripes and spots.

The background is now drenched in a gorgeous mandarin orange, with star-like flecks of blue, exampling the harmony of complementary colours. A 2D Chinese dragon circles around them like they were all trapped in a tube, then shattered into thousands of white and crimson scales, transformed into origami cranes, and all fluttered away.

"You don't think this is the slightest bit strange?" asked the tenor.

The bass was currently a bright orange upside-down elephant.

"Hmm . . ." mused the soprano, as a herd of six-legged bulls thundered past.

"Perhaps we have somehow transgressed the light fantastic?" the alto, who nobody cares about, hazarded.

Odin, on his eight-legged horse, swooped past on some mysterious god-like duty. He was followed by his two crows and his dimming cry of "Valhalla ale!"

"Or maybe we might have—" the alto was cut off by another rush of random gods and goddess, not only Norse, as I could have sworn I glimpsed Set, Bast, Quetzalcoatl and Hermes passing as well.

"You're driving! No, you're driving!" which was what followed them.

"We might be trapped in the chaotic subconscious of the narrating author?" suggested the alto again.

The other three of the trio considered this.

"No, no anime characters," said the highly important soprano at last.

"Excuse me, it looks like you need help," said a clever looking fellow with red hair.

"Oh, yes please!" begged the elephantine bass.

"If you please go through this portal, you may find what you're looking for?" said the man with a curious inflection, gesturing to a mysterious swirling vortex.

"Thanks!" said the quartet, getting sucked through with a smell of brimstone.

The red-head grinned, and high-fived a hiding purple-haired character from a cameo a couple of chapters ago.

"Tried to sedate me with tying me to a rock with my own entrails will they? I think not!"

Kitty stared at the list.

"Great," she said at last. "Another magician."

At this time Nathaniel caught up, panting for breath, the romantic-comedy moment well and truly over because I'm not getting my flute out in this weather.

"Who . . . is it?" he managed to gasp, before leaning against the frame of the headquarters door.

"Sholto Pinn, located in Pinn's Acropolis. Wait, no . . . Accomplice? Accompanier? A comfortable pair of pants?"

Nathaniel hauled himself by the staircase banister up to Kitty, and looked over the list.

"Accoutrements," he read. "It's famously a well-stocked store of all the modern day magician needs. Equipage; trappings. Taken from French, modification of, stem of _accoutrer_."

"Oh, yeah?" asked Kitty, not impressed. "What's that mean then?"

"Equipage; trappings," said Nathaniel, and because I am not allowed to hurt him, Kitty pounded him on the head.

"Enough definition jokes! Let's go!" she said.

Now we break away from my average sort of humour— average for me, not for everyone else, I hope. If it was, I'd immediately start writing angst and romance and stuff, because that's the person I am, you know? Someone against the grain. A quiet rebel. The one behind the scenes. The one—

"Get on with it," sighed Kitty, so tired she referred to a Monty Python quote.

Right, right. I'll finish up. The quiet one you never suspect of brutally killing the head of council— I mean, the fiancé of the daughter of the baron of the impressive mansion on a patch of wildlife home to a unique ecosystem based on funky smelling green moss. Yeah. That's me. Completely honest and modest too.

Anyway, we now switch our attention to the watcher. The lurker. The servant, who has currently taken the form of a pigeon, which sits on the awning above the nearest building, flutters down cautiously, gets caught by a cat and—

Oh, sorry, wrong one.

How about the old lady, seemingly innocently buying her fruits and vegetables, selecting innocent looking watermelons, apples, oranges, lemons—

No, I don't think so.

Wait, cabbages and squash— SHE SURELY IS EVIL! Get her, minions!

The crows stare pointedly at the author.

. . . OK, maybe I overreacted. I've just got this thing against— shallots! EVIL! EVIL! EVIL FROM THE BOWELS OF HELL!

"Doesn't that gargoyle look suspicious?" suggested Kitty loudly.

"You mean that one shaped like a man crossed with a—" Nathaniel is suddenly cut off by a kick from Kitty.

Right, right. Unbeknownst to the Resistance member and magician— yes, look away please, whistle or something— the lurker lurked above them. Crouched amongst some simular looking creatures that looked like they were dredged from the nightmares of someone with a lot of imagination but no art skill—

"DUGONG!"

Shut up!

—It observed the unlikely team with something that might be suspicion if I was lazy and kind. Actually, it was just somewhat more focused blood thirst than usual.

With its unnaturally sharp eyes, it spotted the list, and grinned evilly. Its master would need to know about this.

"So, where is this place supposed to be?" asked Kitty. "This place where the Cowardly Lion might be?"

It grinned evilly. Its master would need to know about this.

"On the corner of Duchess and Piccalilli Street," said Nathaniel. "See, like Duke and Piccadilly in the book, only modified to show the alluding skill of the author and not tread on the copyright."

It grinned evilly. Its master—

Nobody appreciates my genius. Oi! You! Off scene now!

"So where do we go?" asked Kitty.

It grinned evilly. Its—

I said pineapple off!

"To the corner of Duchess and Piccalilli Street?" repeated Nathaniel.

It grinned evilly—

Get lost!

"Yeah?" asked Kitty.

It grinned—

Anna!

"The corner of Duchess and Piccalilli Street!" Nathaniel repeated.

It—

:The Hook of Bruised Souls comes spinning off-scene, caught around its neck, spun it around, and in defiance of the laws of physics and narration, again, comes flying through the author's computer and just misses her automatic jerk and lodges in her bedroom wall:

. . . Dad's not going to be happy.

"Nor is master," said the lurker sadly, and disappeared.

Bartimaeus was bored.

This means he was at leisure to be bored. The guards from before had forced him to play in their distracting games of cards to foil the most obvious means of escape. Now, he was simply locked in a decent sized cell with decent bars.

His attempts to break the bars were, as hinted in the last paragraph, futile. He couldn't slip between them either, because working with the limitations of a parody I had to take away his transforming powers.

"Bloody dugongs," he muttered to himself as he tugged half-heartedly at the bars.

Oi! You start that, I won't be so gentle!

"No chance of you, say, gnawing at my bindings, so I can slip off the table and escape?" Bartimaeus asked hopefully of the cigar-smoking Ratty.

"Sorry," said the rodent, blowing out a ring. "You must've been reading Poe to come up with that."

Bartimaeus gave up struggling with the bars when an attempt to chew them resulted in the discovery of a small amount of iron in them.

He retreated to a corner of his cell to think.

Wait, what was this? A slightly protruding brick? Could it be? Could it maybe, possibly, have the slightest chance of being a way out?

Whoops, sorry, my mistake. Just a normal brick they mortared in a bit early.

"DAMN DUGONG!"

Just then, the cell shrunk by a quarter.

"Damn dugong!"

Just then, the cell shrunk half its original size.

"Damn in general," muttered Bartimaeus.

"And now for something completely different," said Ratty, filing his claws.

"Thanks!" said Kitty, waving.

"No problem," said Mr Leonard Charles Wildberry Balderdash III kindly. "It's just around that block. And tell the author that the lease on my crows will end soon unless I get another ribbon or equally appealing trinket."

"Sure," said Nathaniel, as I shuddered in my seat.

"It mentions 'Sholto Pinn and other'," remarked Kitty, looking over the list. "What could that mean?"

Nathaniel at this point could have made a totally precise but otherwise useless response, but he missed his chance as they arrived at the shop.

Pinn's Accoutrements. The store of all the modern day magician— right, that's already been said.

Pinn's Accoutrements! Your one-stop shop for all your one-stop pop of a lot of top stuff stop!

Hurrah! My ability to secure public attention to a service is completely competent! I display leadership!

Nathaniel and Kitty are deadpan at the humour, but still function enough to tap at the door.

There is a sudden curse and a crash, and then book-sized imp comes hovering up to the door, and squints out.

"'Ere! Wot do we have 'ere, then?" it asks.

Just so everybody knows, I love Cockney accents, or English in general, but Cockney 'specially.

There are more bumps, and the sound of something knocking again highly expensive glass, followed by a moan of dread, then another noble entity comes to the door and gazes out.

Whoa, scratch out that last half-a-sentence. It's just Simpkin.

The foliot, looking miffed that he just got shot down, but still respectful of my awesome still-applicable crow-related powers, looks critically out the glass, then screams—

"Master Pinn is occupied! We're closed!"

—And tries to close the door.

"Steady on, mate," the imp sticks itself between the doorframe and door. "Ya can't go chasing off potential customers, else your— heh-heh— 'master' might Stipple ya."

A shudder of fear coursed through the lower entity, and he sighed.

"Right. Welcome to Pinn's Accruements, the store of all the modern day magician pops, so on and so forth."  
The imp gives the foliot a cheery wave, and zips out the door.

"Oi!" Simpkin shouts, running back to the door again. "Get back here!"

"Sorry! I ain't gots such a nice master, you know," the imp called back.

Simpkin shuddered again in psychological fear.

"Of course, what mine ain't gots is at least made up by his looks, know what I mean?" he commented to the audience before leaving.

Um, it's just foreshadowing, you know. Sets up the atmosphere. It certainly doesn't _hint_ at anything like . . . never mind!

Simpkin did the most effective attack he ever achieved . . . the infamous _Scowl_.

However, it rebounded off an iron decoration above the front of the shop, and hit the cat from a couple of scene changes before, turning it yellow with green splotches.

Hey, who can tell what these crazy spells and such do? OK, first you have initiating stage, in which you prepare the necessary equipment or initiating phrase, then—

:Djinn arrive out of thin space, and assault the author with attack spells:

Oi! You didn't say anything!

"That is because my initiation phrase takes place in my head," said Farquarl, calmly sending a light inferno in my direction. "As long as I keep in mind the context and the result, it will effectively work."

Oh yeah? How about this attack: OCS ATTACK!

:There is a sudden bout of . . . nothing:

:The crows stare.:

. . . I'll see what I can find.

:The crows attack! Driving back the djinn, they drop a slip of paper before heading in all directions:

What do you mean, no instalments!

Going back on scene NOW!—

Stepping forward, and with a straightening of his collar, Nathaniel took control with the self-confidence that I suppose must have been what enamoured him to his fans. Personally, I felt like stomping on him at the end of the second book, and then at the end of the third it's like: 'Hey! He's actually turning good and— uh-oh, things happening, bad things and— OH MY GOD! How _dare_ that happen now? Do you have no respect for my feelings and— NOOO! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? WHY DID THIS HAPPEN? WHY DID HE—!'

"What are you talking about?" asked the still-alive-and-in-reasonably-good-health magician in confusion.

. . . Nothing. I'd just like to say, I LOVE YOU AND—

"Czech! Another fangirl!" cursed Nathaniel, running out of the scene very fast.

. . . OK, I'd better not talk to Bartimaeus then.

:One embarrassing begging session later:

"We have come to speak with your master," stated Nathaniel, surreptitiously tucking his Jane Farrar plushie away, to Simpkin.

Simpkin nodded and smiled with good djinni grace.

"Sorry . . ." he said politely. "WE'RE CLOSED!"

"Still, we need to talk to your master," said Nathaniel, then leant forwards threateningly. "Or else we _could_ just walk in . . . I hope you just don't have anything valuable . . . I don't have my servant under complete control."

It took Kitty only a few seconds to translate the magician's threat, and about the smallest unit of time possible to become offended enough for me to have to retain her from killing Nathaniel too early.

"You can't just walk in to see master and threaten me!" spluttered Simpkin, shaken by the conflict between obliging servant and loathsome evil force in his soul.

"Oh yes I can!" said Nathaniel, drawing himself up. "Because, I have this!"

And he pulls out the best weapon you can get without bullets, lasers or blades! A piece of paper!

"I have the 'Advance to Succour Meeting with Business Owner and Intimidate Servant' Permit!" Nathaniel announced, holding forth the paper for all to see.

Simpkin was shocked, but retaliated.

"Oh? But do you have the most recent edition?" the foliot challenged.

"The Thirteenth Advanced Edition!" replied Nathaniel. "Subsection 3 Paragraph 10.9 too, which means I can threaten ransacking!"

Simpkin was given blow after blow, but his opponent had miscalculated something badly.

"Oh yeah? Is that all matter of status?" he charged.

"Yes! From Upper-Upper Lower Middle, Middle class to Low-Low-Low-Lower-than-Low Upper Lower Middle Class!" said Nathaniel proudly. "That's Subsection 3 the _entirety_ of Paragraph 5."

"Ah-ha!" cried Simpkin triumphantly. "That's for humans only!"

Nathaniel paused, and checked his paper.

"Founder's Day!" he cursed. "Drat! That was Subsection 3 Paragraph 12.6 under the new moon! Well, I'm out."

He tossed the paper and turned around. Kitty seized and spun him back so fast it could have torn his shirt if that wouldn't have interfered with the following exchange.

"What is your master busy with?" Kitty questions, as I go find a sewing kit.

Simpkin paled, his eyes shooting across to the counter, where there is a crimson sealed letter. I pick out a needle.

"That's none of your business, Commoner!" Simpkin gathers himself and spits. I compare thread colours. "And how can you see me? What type of terrible unnatural powers do you have at your service?"

Let me explain. See::snap navy thread with teeth: I have to make this :pick up scissors: Alternate Universe where everyone :tries to cut thread ineffectively: can— just a moment— interact— cut, damn you—, so then I had to— damn it— had to— _damn it_— work out a— _damn it!_ Now it's all frayed!

I had to restrict some entities' abilities, OK? Which means that Bartimaeus can't change into this massive ultimate-type form and smash everybody—

"NOOOO!" echoes the cry from beneath the Police Headquarters.

—And some djinn lose the power to cloak themselves on the first plane. Now I must go and raid Mum's sewing supplies.

"Ah," said Simpkin, in resignation. "Anyway, that is none of your concern."

Steady, steady, nice perilously balanced needles . . .

"Yes it is," pressed Kitty. "It is vital that we find and speak with your master."

Hey! Look at this neato thing! The scissors are sharpened as they go back into their holder!

"Master is engaged in a matter of extreme importance," said Simpkin, drawing himself up to his impressive four feet in height.

Ha-ha! Scissors go in::Scrape: Scissors come out::Scrape: Scissors go in—

"Would you hurry up!" demanded Nathaniel.

Alright! I'll just use my mum's really nice thread cutting scissors and . . .

"But we are here on police business— hurry up, hurry up— and so we must have precedence over anything— ARGH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"

Blanket stitch, Stringy!

"You've _ruined_ it! It's tailor made you stupid dugong!"

If you start that, I'll turn you into something that could never get _near_ a tailor.

"Oh, like what?"

Well, um, a brick perhaps. Or a manikin. Or maybe that imp that flew out a minute ago . . .

"Wait a minute," interrupted Kitty. "What was that imp here for? And what, may I ask, is that letter?" She pointed with an imperial— for a Commoner imperial— hand at the wax-sealed letter on the counter.

"Nothing," said Simpkin.

"Really?" questioned Kitty.

"Yes," said Simpkin.

"Well, if that was _really_ true," said Kitty. "Why have you gone that shade of colour?"

"What shade of colour?" asked Simpkin.

"That lime green," said Kitty.

"No, that's May green," said Nathaniel, twisting furiously at his new horns.

"More of a grass green," said Mrs Underwood, taking her newly arrived antique tea set from an old civilisation from the Middle East that had been destroyed by an easily bored entity.

"Emerald green!" said Bartimaeus from his cell. "And didn't I like rampage through all the china shops?"

"Puke green," said the imp, smoking a pipe on the eave of a nearby church.

"Grey!" said the lurker from above the eave of a nearby church.

"I GET IT!" shrieked Simpkin. "OK! I'M LYING! LOOK AT MY NOSE, IT'S GETTING BIG!"

"It was always like that," said Nathaniel, futilely chasing a spearheaded tail behind him.

"But I will never betray master's trust!" Simpkin cried. "I will never violate the bond we share! As a convenient deity as my witness, I will never go Stippled again!"

At this, the grim foliot crushed a bitter mandarin, the fruit of his Summoning, and the _decent_ allusion scene ended.

"Fine, we'll just interview you," said Nathaniel, the horns, tail and hooves disappearing as he became assured of himself and his heart, yadda, yadda.

Simpkin staggered backwards as the magician ruthlessly advanced with a clipboard.

"Name?"

"K-Kin no Baka?" (1. Will put pointless note on bottom. Don't worry about it.)

"Age?"

"Between here to eternity?"

"Half full or empty?"

"Empty?"

"Red or white?"

"Meat?"

"Favourite Harry Potter book?"

"The Philosopher's Stone?"

"Are you the Cowardly Lion?

"No?"

Nathaniel clicked his tongue as he reviewed the notes.

"Checks out on the vitals . . ." he murmured. "But my intuition tells me he is not the one."

Kitty rolled her eyes at being ignored, and snatched up the clipboard.

"OK, we'll just interview your master, and we'll be off," stated Kitty, and headed for the counter.

Simpkin looked dazed for a moment, then leapt across to block her way.

"You can't!" he said. "It's impossible!"

"Look," said Kitty. "I've broken into tons of places with better taste than this. I'm not going to waste a moment on your hackneyed laser-and-ravenous-djinn security system."

Evidently she hadn't read the 'Bartimaeus meets the Chucky Prototypes' chapter in the 'Amulet of Samarkand'. I have. I loved it. One of my all-time favourite scenes, and I'd love to make one even halfway as brilliant.

"But you can't because you're writing a parody," said Nathaniel. Now he gets an unsightly rash of scales up his neck and half his cheek.

"That's not what I mean!" the foliot pleaded desperately.

"I have no moral or ethical qualms about unlawfully entering someone's hermit cave either," stated Kitty. "So tell me where your master is."

"That's just it!" Simpkin waved frantically. "He's not here! He's out on business!"

There is a pause.

"Why didn't you tell us that sooner, then?" Kitty seized him by his collarbone.

"'Cause master said to tell nobody!" Simpkin wailed, waves of exaggerated tears down his cheeks.

Nathaniel sighed, and jotted down some note in a slim notebook he kept in his tight breast pocket.

"Well, no use hanging around here," he says, turning for the door. "The best thing we can do is try to get as much information as possible from our other suspects.

"Fine!" says Kitty, dropping the poor foliot. "Let's go."

They head out as Simpkin gasps and writhes behind the counter.

"By the way, did you know your face was covered in purple scales?"

"Dear Gladstone, NO!"

Droopy was engaged in an incredibly delicate operation requiring intense concentration, skill, and a sturdy mind.

"Steady . . ." he whispered. "Steady . . ."

"Boss!" cried out Mr Pointy, suddenly whipping open the door.

Droopy sat and stared at where once was a nearly complete tower of cards. A few errant clubs and still skirted over the ground.

"I hope this is important," said the Sergeant slowly, in one of his serious moods.

Mr Pointy scratched a cheek in nervousness. "Well, sir, I thought it might be necessary to keep you updated on our pursuit of the Cowardly Lion."

Droopy picked up a Joker and looked at it. "Very well then."

"Um . . . the update . . . the update . . . is that it stopped," Mr Pointy finally came out.

Droopy was still looking at the cards.

"Ah, I mean, we've lost it."

Ace of Hearts, Two of Hearts, Three of— hey, that's Spades!

"The Cowardly Lion. And whatever is chasing it. We've lost it."

His sergeant was reordering the cards spread all around the office.

"Ah, sir?" Mr Pointy questioned. "What are you going to do now?"

Sergeant Droopy looked at the Royal Flush he had in his hands.

"I think," he started. "That I'm going to have my evening warm milk."

Mr Pointy sighed and closed his eyes. Working for the Mob was less stressful than this.

**FOOTNOTE'S JUST A LITTLE LOWER DOWN!**

It was a bit late and a bit pointless, but I felt like I had to end it there. Feels like I have to wait 'till next chapter to put in the things I wanted there and get this in on time.

Wow, it might turn out to be a quartet . . .

Since we _still_ don't a Cowardly Lion, I'll ask another character to do the Disclaimer. For your entertainment and approval, please get it up for . . .

A small and obscure imp steps forward into the focus, and is tossed a microphone. Holding it to his black-lipped mouth, he speaks thusly:

"G'day, all! It's Nittles, 512, as long as it's got something in it, as long as it's not moving, the Prisoner of Azkaban and NOT."

He takes out a slip of paper almost as big as himself, and switches the microphone into another hand.

"Right, yous. The author don't own the following: The Bartimaeus Trilogy, by Jonathon Stroud; the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Frank Baum; Terry Pratchett; crosswords; Hearts; clips of 'Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail', least since they lost it on an old computer; any barber shop quartets and songs; 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen; Yahoo, registered trademark of the Yahoo Corporation; Madonna; the International Idol concept; the Olympics; various Gods and Goddesses; a re-cameo-ing Mysterious Priest; any Edgar Allen Poe works; Cockney accents (wit' she c'n't fake f'r long, like); blanket stitching; 'Gone With the Wind' or, more specifically, the allusion on the brilliant cartoon 'Daria'; the Harry Potter series; and any and all Monty Python skits which may have been used as basis for some of the scenes."

Nittles checks the note for any further remarks, and turns over.

"Right, and t' one-and-only footnote:"

**FOOTNOTE HERE NOW!**

1. 'Kin no Baka' is the author's crude attempt at Japanese. Basically, she's trying to mean 'Kin of Idiots', although why in Japanese we don't know. Must be a crazy music-induced whim.

To the applause of many, the imp bows.

Thank you, Nittles! Now, I remind you about the **All I Ever Needed to Know in Life I Learned From the Bartimaeus Trilogy** is still open, in fact, it's empty, so if you could just make one up from the top of your head—

"Like: 'Them small and wit' the mucky jobs always get picked on.'"

—Yeah, like that, and just spit it out with or without a note of acknowledgement to my written work, I would be deliriously happy, and go to school all smiling and give to charities and all that.

"An' if ya, don't, she's gunna find ye houses and—"

That's enough—

"—An' get this mega load of eggs, 'n—"

YOU DO NOT NEED TO SAY ANY MORE!

"An' _that's_ just if ye say summing nice wit' constructive criticism an' all the like."

Thank you Nittles, I really appreciate it! Now let's just finish this up so—

"If ya flame 'er, she's gunna break ya bedroom winda (2) an'—"

CROW ARMY!

:Void of silence:

Um, I'm getting a special order in the mail next week?

:The flock of crows blow past, sending the tiny imp spinning into the distance:

Thanks, and that second footnote up there? (2) I just wanted to mention that pronunciation came from the play 'Educating Rita', which is like t' best play ta learn 'ow ta speak Liverpudlian and t' like.

See ya next time!


	8. Where in the World PART III

"If you have to build a wall, Get a troop of weaker entities (entities) to do it for you."

Submitted by Enigma, the Exception to Every Rule. Thank you!

Hi, this place is familiar, isn't it? I'm really sorry, but things have been piling up. You want to know the stuff I've been doing? Come on, I know you want to! I'll add amusing sound effects every now and then.

OK, while at the city once (pleasant background music), doing some errands and stuff, I tripped while going up an elevator (funny slipping sound and raucous laughter). Alright, everyone stop laughing now (laugh track). I got an interesting step-shaped bruise on my leg now (group aww). Now, over the past few months, I was part of the pit band for the school's biannual musical (flute flourish). This year it was . . . Annie (gasp). You do realize it was concert type stuff (play Overture). But we got over it ('The Sun'll Come Out, Tomorrow), after a few spent Sundays ('It's a Hard Knock Life'). I also became female Band Captain (triumphant fanfare) much to my chagrin (unhappy trumpet). Not to mention, with all this happening, the semester was drawing to a close (door creaking), which meant assessments, assessments, News Broadcast, late submissions (alarm clock rings). Then, not even after that, study, study, study for exams (warning sirens). And I got a cold (wa, wa, wah . . .)

Anyway, I'm really, really, sorry. I'm still going to submit, but I don't think I'll ever be regular. My new story, 'Nathanael and Kathleen', is easier to do, so it should progress more.

Although I've been such a scrooge on updating, I got a good amount of reviews. Maybe patience is all I need. Here we go.

Darkstar-Sublimation:

Thank you very much for your long review! And thanks for your thanks for writing a long reply to your short one from a chapter ago! And to just contrast past experiences, I will reply in dot-point form! (Why? Because I'm petty and spiteful? Because I'm nasty and sarcastic? Because I get cheap laughs?)

(Nota Bene: Only half of two sentences are true, and written in alphabetical order, which will interfere with the placing.)

- Ratio equals 1 irrelevant review : 1 irrelevant review. Adjusted ratio equals 1 irrelevant review : 1 relevant review. Good odds.

- See if can work 'Baka Nor Ka Zu Ku' in one-shot in-progress, which should centre around the Simpkin and Pinn duo (Simpkin so fun to play with! Almost like Bartimaeus, but less venerable!)

(P.S.: Throughout three schools (two primary, one high), choices have been: Indonesian—German (depending on side of town)— or German and Japanese. Stuck with German. Weep now.)

- The comprehensibility of my chronicling is inversely applied to the amount of humourous effect that it is my intention to occur. (Read: I write bad to make smart stuff sound funny, and write eloquently to induce hilarity in dumb moments.)

(P.S.: Japanese-manufactured brains do not work in many regional settings, I have found.)

- Badfic: Is that bad as in bad, or bad as in good? Confusion: needs to have better name. Maybe: Anti-fic? Pseudo-fic?

- ROI has mild megalomania mixed with mild paranoia, so it is not detectable.

- Have not 'Good Omens'. Read other work by Gaiman. Read 'Sandman' Comic. Think I'm still bleeding. Think something broke in here. (Death cool as, but not as sympathize-inducing as, the Death of Terry Pratchett.)

- Anna's Hook's viciousness is inversely related to— Sorry. The Hook's nastiness is no match when compared to Anna in a bad— :Hook swings past: Mercy!

- Anna's Hook is an anti-hook when applied to 'hooks'. It is used against those who are 'hooked', whether on the spotlight or off on a tangent— Hitori de wa— and unhooks them with severity.

- Sorry, but when fixing mistake (Nubbins not equal Nittles . . . Grr), lost answer to previous review. Sorry. Cringing.

Enigma. The Exception to Every Rule:

Two words. Thank, you, thank you, thank you. Is still two when six. Thank you.

The Thirteenth Councillor:

Could never hate you : bounces hook : Suggestions are great! Governments _are_ cor— very nice people, very nice. : Creeps away :

jesusfreak30:

. . . Short, and to the point. Monty Python and the Holy Grail had its moments. At the very least, it is a venerable source of quotes.

Waste no time! Read now!

* * *

Last time, on the Wizard of Ahz! It's a quiet city. There's the traffic ingestion, the construction sites, and the screaming, screaming mass destruction sprees. A quiet little town. 

_Until they came._

_The name's Droopy. Sergeant Droopy. It's my responsibility in this joint to keep everything around me sane, and sometimes it takes its toll._

"_Just leave the dried frog pills on my desk, Darlene."_

_As I monologue-d before, it's a quiet little town. Until they— Hey, I've said this before already!_

_So this dame comes to me. Name's Kitty. A cat with sharper claws I've never seen. And she brings this high-class swank. Name's Not Nathaniel. Probably Russian._

_They bring this incarnation of fire and air to me, name's Barty— Barim— Barta— Something. It has a unique ring to it._

"We have been unjustly accused of a crime," says the swank one. 

"Someone's _said we murdered this Rincewind clone," says the dame meaningfully, but danged if I know why._

"_So we need you to find this man— who was not murdered— and prove us innocent," the swank one drones._

"_If you don't find this guy and clear our names, I'm gonna put your liver on the black market," the dame clarifies._

_The entity influencing mankind for good and evil didn't say much. I just thought he had a tight lip, but turns out he had a tight metal collar. The things these people are put through . . ._

"_Sure," I say, fixing my detective hat on straight. "Leave it to me."_

"Liar!" Kitty interrupts the atmosphere. "_We_ had to do the legwork!"

"_We're counting on you . . . Sergeant," says the dame saucily._

"She never!" Nathaniel interrupts.

_There was obviously something between these two, some sort of friction._

"LIKE HELL!" shout both dame and swank.

"_Excuse me? I think you've forgotten me," the djinni raises a hand._

And so on, and so on, and so on.

* * *

Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? PART III 

In a place of many people, there are many stories. Stories that span generations with dynasties and star-crossed love and other Shakespearian inspirations. Stories that will shock a generation with the coldness and beauty of true life. Stories of real people.

And of those stories, the very best may be put down on paper, bound in hardcover with a jacket photo, published and reach around the world!

This one is on a Fanfiction site.

. . . What? It's still totally respectable!

Here we are in Fluoride City! It is a place of many contrasts, to the suburbs where rosy-faced youngsters make innocent Mafia-clone groups in the primary-coloured parks, to where hard-cut men skip about happily in lavatory-smelling alleys.

And so, in the vicious, cold, and heartless complexes of the playgrounds— whoops, I mean, alleyways— men skip and play and— you know, I should really compose my thoughts _before_ I write.

Anyway, in the complexes of alleyways and the working class, there are plotters. And they plot. Oh, how they do plot. Oh, the plots they can plot, if only they plot.

. . . Note to self: Do NOT compose thoughts after reading Seuss.

And in among the primary coloured warehouses—

"_Ahem_?"

Sorry, I mean— dreary coloured warehouses, there is an example, in which one man plots to skip about happily— Sorry, I am just not _thinking_ today.

—"When do you, dugong?"

Shut up, or I'll make a glove out of you! —

"If it makes things any easier, just cut to where I am."

Oh. Right. Here we go . . .

"Got any threes?"

". . . No . . ."

"Then pass them over."

No, no, sorry, that's Scene _15_. We need Scene _17_. Hang on; it's here somewhere.

"'N so, my doctor says that I can't go 'round lifting hay bales anymore," Farmer Bob was explaining to Rob and Cob. "So I thought, since Mr Leonard Charles Balderdash Wildberry III is out on business, I could mind the sheep dip instead."

Damn, that's Scene 5. How did that get there? Ooo, I'm going to get Tony for dropping the box!

"The horror . . . the horror . . ." whimpered Tumber, curled up in a foetal position on the bathroom floor.

Not that . . .

"We represent, the Musk Sticks League! The Musk—"

Sorry.

"Sure, just check right through that portal!" a sneaky-looking man gestured to a swirling portal of doom.

I don't have time for this, sir. I really must hurry.

"Can't the barer of my daughter's name visit her own mentor?"

Sorry, master, but I'm annoying people.

"That's my girl!"

This looks like it . . .

ESUOHERAW YMOOLG DAN KRAD A NI—

Whoops, put it on backwards! Gotta fix the Caps Lock too.

In a dark and gloomy warehouse, a barber shop quartet sprawls across the—

Oi! Get back in there:Flicks them into another conveniently supplied portal:

Good help is so hard to find . . .

In a dark and gloomy warehouse, a chill wind blows. Chains of now redundant use swing sadly in the breeze. Mice have deserted this place, and the last family of cockroaches are waiting out the end of their month-long lives.

Perhaps it was because, or, the reason of the plotter's use of the place. Now he was here and accompanied by what appeared to be a man, or the bad end of an elephant.

"Of _course_ you will get your share," said the plotter, and the best eavesdropper could only guess of his tiredness. "Why would I abandon you?"

The example of an ample lifestyle and little space gulped nervously. Only greed kept him here.

"Besides, I still need you to collect information for me," said the more-humanoid one. "So you must stay in position."

"Yes, of course, master," said the more-pachyderm one.

"Then go," said the plotter quietly.

The larger man hurries away. Moonlight shone briefly through a gap in the roof, and reflected off the glasses of the plotter. No other light fell on his face, as that would have spoiled the anticipation.

Wow, too much seriousness-ity. I've got to put a contrast somewhere.

No sooner had the greedy man disappeared, there was a lack of introduction as a djinni materialised with a puff of sulphur and all that tasteless jazz.

"Master!"

The plotter narrowed his silhouetted eyes as the abominable end to the serious-ity ended the serious-ity-ness abominably.

"What?" he snapped, as the moonlight travelled on.

The lurker vaguely picked up that it had done something wrong, but doubt had little room in the weapons room of its mind.

"Master, I have news. Someone's—"

"What have I told you?" its master interrupts icily. Or hotly. Some depth or height in temperature, anyway.

The lurker froze, because a sweep of his data banks would require that all other programs were shut down.

"Do not . . . eat the other servants?" it ventured.

The eyes flashed, even without an accompanying ray of moonlight.

A pentacle bloomed on the floor for a moment, and the imprisoned lurker leap up in pain by reflex.

"No," said the plotter, not having used the words of fiery pain in intimate parts. "I asked for a warning every time you appear."

The lurker thought about this. Well, as much as it could think without strain.

"Yes!" it suddenly cried in triumph. "You did!"

The plotter was not as enthusiastic. A lightning bolt speared down from the ceiling and went right down the creature, _which I won't describe yet because it would spoil the anticipation!_

"Never, _ever_ disobey me again!" the plotter shouted. Although, like all magicians— Whoops! That was not a hint! This in no way, shape or form suggests anything in the coming plot. It might be a coincidence, but I got a fairly good mark in my Probability test last year and I can make a darn good probability branch complex thing!

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Sharing attributes with magicians, the plotter's voice was a weedy timbre, but thanks to the walls of the warehouse, the sound bounced until it thundered—

"Actually, a real warehouse would make an echo that could only grow softer, and that was if you had the right type of material, such as sturdy rock. However, this being the average warehouse in a worse than average city, it would be improbable that even a normal echo could occur in any case."

"No, _you're_ a warehouse!"

Well, maybe he chose one of them special warehouses, then, hmm? It's probable!

"Yes, but then it would stand out, and assuming that with the plotter's past examples of subterfuge and atmospheric descriptions were to indicate a discreet business, this would thus be counter-active against the plotter's plans."

"I hate you and your counter-activeness!"

He's really very instrumental in my— Alright, alright. It was not the warehouse that produced the growing echo. It was a narrative effect, from my awesome /4I 4U71-1012 P0/3125!

"No, _you're_ a mad author powers . . . Dugong!"—

"But master!" pleaded the slave. "I never disobeyed! I forgot!"

"THERY'RE THE SAME THING!" the plotter boomed thanks to narrative causality (thank you, Terry Pratchett).

"No they're not," said the slave.

"YES THEY ARE!"

Not technically.

"Silence!"

Fine, fine. I'm keeping myself low to maintain a steady output of narrative effects, OK? So neither of us wants to have me cheesed off so that I have to call another cameo character. You know, I haven't brought anyone in from Ruroni Kenshin. Maybe it can be Sanosuke, or Saito, or Himura Kenshin himself!

: Tapping of Hook of Bruised Souls :

Yep, moving right along.

"Now, what is your important message, slave?" asked the plotter, after feeling his throat and wishing for a throat lozenge. I said I was keeping it low, didn't I?

"Well," the slave shifted uncomfortably, not just because he had a, let's say, lesson against the lack of trousers. "It's from the . . . from the . . ."

"From where?" snapped the plotter impatiently. "The BM? The PB? The RH?"

"A Bridesmaid? The Princess Bridget? An agglutinogen often present in human blood?" (1 Woo, footnotes!)

There was more disciplinary movement.

"Civilians have been searching for the target as well!" howled the servant, the possibility of lurking on cold stone awnings unlikely in the future. "They have a list and clipboard and everything!"

The plotter mused about this for a while.

"Hmm . . . I shall have to muse on this for longer."

You don't mind a scene change now, because I've really got to hurry up.

"Very well."

"That not dynamic enough!"

Alright!

A violent crack of lightning struck the lightning rod on the roof, bathing the area in an eerie blue light. The reflective orbs of the plotter's glasses were turned to the horizon in thought, the deep belly-winds of the storm rattling the walls.

"No matter what, I shall achieve my goal," he murmured. "I will be the greatest force Fluoride City has ever seen, or my name isn't—"

Oi! Oi! No foreshadowing! What have I told you dudes?

-xxx-

There were sudden footsteps outside. All fell silent as they came to the door. After gently wheezing for a moment, they opened the door, which swung quietly on oiled hinges.

"I need your help," said Mr Pennyfeather nobly to the assembly of Kitty, Bartimaeus, Nathaniel and Droopy. "For I am the Cowardly Lion!"

Dun, Dun, DURN!

**Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Scene Example I!**

ROI: Sorry. Just testing possible scenarios and characters for the ending scene for this chapter. Wouldn't you know, I've hardly just confirmed to myself who it's going to be!

Anna: I'd believe it.

Mr Buttons: Me too!

Mr Tipples: Sorry, but I don't find it totally unlikely either.

ROI: Oh, go try the tinned anchovies from the 90s!

Tony: Does that mean I can do the 'dun-dun' stuff later?

-xxx-

Meanwhile, in the Fluoride City Police Headquarters (FCPHQ when I'm feeling tired), Sergeant Droopy was in his racecar-wallpapered office, in front of his crepe-papered computer, interpreting the information he gained on his screen.

"Badger-badger-badger-badger!"

"BWAHAHAHAHAA!" laughed Droopy hysterically, almost falling from his chair. "There's a mushroom!"

"Sergeant Droopy, sir!" announced Mr Pointy. He announced it in a whisper, because his last sudden intrusion had destroyed Droopy's castle of necessary cards. Have you noticed I have many card references in this work? Weird, huh? And then when I play Might and Magic, or lands of Lore, there're lots of monster references? Isn't that weird?

—"No. It is actually a sharing of information, a tool in creating a bond between author and reader."

Aww . . . that is so sweet!

"It's your pathetic attempt at padding! Don't try to deny it! YOU'RE MAKING FILLER, DUGONG!"

SHUT UP YOU— Hey, I wonder what this is saying about me? —

"Ah! It's a snake!" gasped Droopy.

"What? But I'm just a background character! I can't afford to have any ulterior—"

Dude? He's talking about the animation. Hey, there're the badgers again!

"Oh. Sorry."

Next time, _think_ before you possibly blurt out a possible blatant foreshadowing! I'm trying to write a decent fanfic here! —

"And failing miserably," said Kitty from her dressing room, reading the script. —

"The mission to locate the victim to transport them to a place of sanctuary has failed!" said Mr Pointy, standing straight and tall.

"Regardless, we will continue, on our quest to bring peace to the city of Fluoride," said Sergeant D solemnly. "Hey! Mushroom!"

"And now we return to our heroic team of the fusing of the Commoner and High-society powers," said Pointy, turning to attention. "Right after this commercial break."

Hey, dude! Let me keep up!

-xxx-

The conversation was halted abruptly when there was a loud tapping on the window, which swung open soundlessly as the sanctum-seeker flew into the room, and boomed for all to hear:

"I need, I SAID, I NEED YA HELP!" shouted Nittles so he could be heard over the traffic outside. "'Cos I'm ye Cowardly Lion!"

DUN, DUN—

"Oi! A bit quieter, thanks!" shouted Nittles.

Sorry. Dun, dun, _durn_!

**Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Scene Example VI!**

Nittles: Aw yeah, more screen time! I hardly got a chapter to meself in the first book!

Tumber (That Triloid from the fifth chapter): Hey, you're going to include me, right? 'Cause I didn't even get a line in mine!

ROI: Sorry. Because you didn't get any lines, or personality, it's near impossible to write something for you.

That Triloid from the fifth chapter: Come on! Do you know how long it took to glue those tiles together? DO YOU KNOW WHAT I'VE SEEN!

ROI: Hey, hey, get back, I can't— Are those claws? How to you retract them? Hey, wait, get away from—

Nittles: And now back to our irregularly updated fanfic YOU COBBERS!

-xxx-

"Ready to go?" asked Nathaniel, sitting at a café table, enjoying a milky coffee and wholegrain biscuit.

"Whatever," said Kitty, sitting at a café table, viciously guarding a strawberry milkshake and double-choc brownie.

"Very well," said Nathaniel, standing up. "I'll pay for us."

"Really?" said Kitty in surprise.

"Yes. It was good meeting with you, Ms Piper," Nathaniel said to the young woman sitting across from him.

"Thank you, sir," said Rebecca Piper graciously as Kitty glared from the other café across the street.

"And if you should ever consider working in the Government—"

"Of course, sir," said Ms Piper, smiling in the early evening light. A light breeze blew, sending an appropriate screen of dried blossoms over her face.

"A_hem_," said Kitty, marching over the road, being narrowly missed by a crude motorcar, which blared its horn appropriately while the occupant gestured inappropriately.

"We will be sure to welcome you into the House," said Nathaniel, a similar breeze making his charcoal locks wave.

"I said, that's $7.50, miss!" called the checkout guy from Kitty's takeaway foodbar.

Piper smiled warmly, stood up, picked up her modest handbag and left with a slight bow.

"Here's a twenty, and keep the change," said Nathaniel to the waiter, who had a tie and everything.

"Oi, you cheapskate! How am I supposed to pay when I dropped out of the sky in an art supplies store?" Kitty demanded.

Nathaniel blinked, as if realizing finally that she was there, and gave her a magician's wane I'm-superior-to-you-so-you-should-be-glad-I-don't-charge-you-with-stealing-my-air smile.

"I don't remember accepting to take responsibility to your finances," he said curtly, picking up the clipboard. ""But we really ought to be going now."

"You little—" Kitty was about to say to his back, as well as a lot of other things she would have improvised, but the checkout guy from the takeaway across the street had run over, giving the finger to a few cars (some of which had been parked, and so their metal souls were dented).

"Oi, you— : Improvised phrase : I said $7.50! Pay up before I— Kitty?"

Kitty spun around, and came face to face with one of the last people in the world she expected to see.

"Jonathon Stroud?"

I wish. Try again.

"Stanley? What are you doing here?"

"Whatcha talking about? A job's a job, right?" Stanley sniffed. "Hey, what are you doing here then?"

Kitty belatedly remembered the survey.

"Name?"

"Stanley Pendragon."

"Age?"

"Coincidently about the age of the heir to the throne of the Winkles at the time he disappeared."

"Half full or empty?"

"I never been there!"

"Red or white?"

"Red."

"Favourite Harry Potter book?"

"Harry who?"

"Are you the Cowardly Lion?"

"Don't be stupid! I'm the Prince of Bedraggled Daises! Geez, Kitty, aren't you slow?"

"Who is this?" asked Nathaniel, impatiently as he returned to see what was taking his pack-mule so long.

"Pack mule?" Kitty demanded to me.

"Hey! Don't I know you?" Stanley asked Nathaniel.

The magician's eyes narrowed as an unpleasant memory surfaced. "It's you."

"Is it? Did I take something from you?" Stanley screwed up his face in thought.

"Yes," stated Nathaniel darkly. "Something very important. From a night in an alley."

"Really? We're hardly out in alleys at night, too dark and stereotypical, like," Stanley scratched his whiskery chin. "Ah, right! Yeah, I think I remember you! Hang on a sec, I still got that . . ."

Nathaniel smiled grimly as Stanley twisted around. His face, however, froze, as Stanley pulled up the waistband of his underpants.

"Ow, that ain't half tight," Stanley flinched as he read the tag. "So you're a 'Nathaniel', aren't ya? Doesn't your real name give me like some power over you?"

Nathaniel coloured in fury and embarrassment. "Hey, give those back!"

"Cor," said Stanley, as the band snapped back. "That's downright brutal, you know."

"Didn't you rob him two years ago?" Kitty asked, worriedly for the sanity of those around her. "Isn't he a year younger than you?"

"Oh, yeah," said Stanley, holding Nathaniel back with a palm on his forehead.

"And isn't this a bit too suss?" Kitty questioned plaintively. Oh dear, hopefully this doesn't go above PG-13, or I'll 00ERROR00 all you 00ERROR00! Is that 00ERROR00ing better for you 00ERROR00s!

: One begging session and sacrificing of a portion of 4U71-1012 P0/3R5 later :

"OK," said Nathaniel, getting impatient. "You little 00ERROR00! Get out of my—"

Geez!

: One MORE begging session later :

"So, Stanley, do you know of anybody referred to as the 'Cowardly Lion'?" Kitty asked, unexcitedly.

"Well, gee, Miss Kitty, ma'am, can't say I have," said Stanley sarcastically. "But I may know someone who does."

"And who might that be, Stanley-boy?" Kitty inspected her nails.

"A Mr Nicholas Drew," said Stanley, scratching an itch. "He knows everyone in the underground. He is often found in the Silhouetted Nightmare Club. There's a footnote for that, too." (2. Oh, yeah.)

"Thank you, Young Mr Stanley," Kitty stretched her back. "I will not think to question the impossibility that a resident of my original world has somehow ended up in here with a history. Good-bye."

"Wait, Kitty," Stanley grabbed her upper arm, bringing her to a halt.

"What?" she snapped in irritation, blushing slightly.

"Well, you know, if you're with that magician guy against your will," Stanley said, uncertainly. "Do you think that, between us . . ."

Kitty's eyes widened as she considered. Her lips parted as she turned to face him. She lifted a hesitant hand . . .

And got him right in the nose with a right hook.

"And if you think I'm gunna pay for one of _your_ milkshakes, you must have 00ERROR00 for brains!" she called back as she ran after Nathaniel.

"Dam. Dat spoiled da moment," Stanley groaned as he felt his nose.

Nah. It actually made it a winner.

-xxx-

Silence fell, as an eerie wind slammed the window shut.

Footsteps were heard down the hall.

An atmosphere of suspense and tension devoured the room. It seemed to hint at a time of stealth and slyness; of vivid plots and dynamic actions.

The door swung open in a gust of wind (from inside a building built for gang war on a foundation of concrete), and the atmosphere-bearing man stepped forwards.

"I need your help," said Harlequin, solemnly. "For I am the Cowardly Lion."

**Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Scene Example XXIX!**

Harlequin: Ah-ha! Appreciation!

ROI: Don't get too bubbly, dude. That's probably the only text time you're getting in this show.

Harlequin: What? By the streets of Prague, why?

ROI: Um . . . you don't fit.

Harlequin: By the Alchemists of old, I do! I would make a magnificent Wizard.

ROI: Hey, you're right!

Harlequin: So do I— I mean, bless the Strahov Monastery! I do get a part?

ROI: Nah. : Typing away : Too late now, and besides! I've already got a person in mind for it.

Harlequin: Appalled stuttering : What? I— Stone Bridge, why I— Tower of London?

ROI: Ignores : Who: Wag finger : That is a secret!

Harlequin: Still affronted : Vltava? Zoroastrian? Tenochitlan?

ROI: Still ignoring : Heh. Actually, his part and the Cowardly Lion's was the hardest to fill. Not because they were necessarily sparse of comparisons, but because there was so many cowards and humbugs, _as you can see_! I probably should have thought this out better before I started. : Embarrassed laugh : But, I'm sledging through anyway.

Harlequin: Nimrud! Assyria! Westminster Alley! Oh, 00ERROR00!

ROI: I'm not having any of that language in my : Read hand : Fam-ily Friend-ly example of Fan Work, by order of the Fanfiction committee. If they take my music, I'm gonna 00ERROR00ing 00ERROR00 them all!

: Gone begging :

ROI: Come on! Do you know how hard it is to find midis on the Internet now!

-xxx-

: One undeserved mercy later :

"So, he's in the Silhouetted Nightmare Club?" asked Droopy.

"Yes," said Kitty.

"And he knows the underground, so he would know the Cowardly Lion?"

"Yes."

"And by finding the Cowardly Lion, we can find who is trying to kill them, and possibly why, so we can charge them and set your Scarecrow free?"

"Yes," affirmed Nathaniel.

"Alright," said Droopy in understanding. "I'll get my coat."

As he went out of his office to go to the wardrobe, Kitty, Nathaniel, and Mr Pointy etc stared after him.

"I didn't think that would be so easy," admitted Kitty.

"Don't say that," said Nathaniel darkly. "It will immediately become harder."

"Oh, that's just typical nihilist pessimistic fatalistic magician's view," said Kitty scornfully. "What proof do you have of that?"

"Well, for one thing, there's been different speaking verbs for a while now. That can only mean—"

"Wait a second, I have just remembered something!" announced Droopy as he returned to the room. "I was banned from all clubs in that part of my city because of my gang!"

"That the author has a plan," sighed Nathaniel.

"Yes, that's right!" continued Droopy. "It was on that night when we painted every flat surface with mushy legumes—"

"Don't worry," muttered Kitty. "She's going to exhaust everyone and herself soon."

"—And the clotted blood from our enemies' abraded corpses!"

Silence.

"So we must form a plan," said Droopy, screwing his face up with thought. "I'll go get my thinking hat!"

"I don't think it's a really good idea to invite the narration to your attention," Mr Pointy mentioned in the way such of his name.

"So now we must plan!" announced Droopy, a ten-gallon hat with an arrow through it on his head. "Because I have just an idea you two could help with," he looked slyly in the magician and commoner's direction.

Think I'm gonna run out of surprises, huh? Only when you tie me to a rock by my own entrails! MWAHAHAHA!

-xxx-

There was a tap on the door. Droopy opened it.

There stood Carl Mortensen.

Minister of War.

They stare at him.

That is, a bland, middle-aged magician. He advocated the war in America.

"Oh," they said.

"I need your help," he said. "For I am the Cowardly Lion."

They stare at him, still.

He was captured in the theatre, and not much else happened to him. He might have been possessed and killed. I'm not sure.

"Hi," said Bartimaeus.

. . . OK, then.

**Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Scene Example ILV-vii!**

ROI: OK. That won't be happening.

Mortensen: I just didn't understand my motivation.

ROI: Dude, you're the Cowardly Lion! It explains itself! Oh, it doesn't matter. I've got the guy already.

Mortensen: Speak the speech, I pray you. I have business to attend to, anyway.

ROI: Muttering : Ooo, Shakespeare, now. As you like it.

Mortensen: Nothing really matters, to me.

ROI: And Queen! Aren't we posh? I'm just apoor author, nobody loves me . . .

-xxx-

"I don't believe it," said Nathaniel miserably.

"I had no idea the author would stoop so low," said Kitty in a deadpan way.

"The fishnets are killing me," moaned the boy.

"I knew he's get a rip in them," the girl muttered. "And that skirt does _not_ go with that jacket."

"It's too thick," Nathaniel agreed.

Kitty sighed. "The mascara is horrible."

"Well, your make-up work is terrible," Nathaniel shot back.

"OK! Make-up is not my thing," Kitty snapped. "Besides, that colour wouldn't even look good on me!"

"But the hair is perfect," admitted Nathaniel.

"And he's very adept at those heels," Kitty added.

They look solemnly across the street to where Sergeant Droopy waved to their rooftop and strutted to the club entrance.

"Where'd he get that spangly hair-gel stuff anyway?" Kitty wondered aloud.

"We really shouldn't be asking that," said Nathaniel, dressed in a slightly looser suit of his own with no fishnets anywhere. "This should be enough for the author."

It is, it is. And he's lending that stuff to me for the crows. That oughta rack up enough for a few more chapters, right?

"Actually," said Leonard etc. etc. III, situated not in the fictional universe but somewhere else. "I charge double rates for public holidays and late submissions."

That man is scary. : Paranoid glancing :

Strutting very convincingly, Sergeant, er, let's see . . . Drusilla, (What? It's a real name! Did you think I was going to say 'Droopina' something?) comes to the line in front of Silhouetted Nightmare. Flashing a strawberry-glossed (courtesy from a packet I got for my birthday. It's also got Vanilla and Chocolate) smile at the club's bouncer, he/she produces his/her ID.

"Drusilla Droopina," read the bouncer from the ID, proving his over-qualification for a bouncer and what a sheer waste of time it is to develop elaborate clever plots for Original Characters to mess up.

"What? It is my name!" said Drusilla Droopina.

Let's just forget all about that, lest I fail suppressing an urge to call you Fred, or something equally horrible . . . like Tristan _or Teá!_ (3. Trivia later!)

"Hey! Is that you, Mr Droopy?" asked the bouncer in surprise.

"Maybe. But if you know what's good for you, Little Teapot of Boiling Water, you'll keep quiet!" Droopy loomed menacingly over the man.

"Yes, Master of Horrible Comic Irony," whimpered the bouncer, as Droopy strode past.

Kitty passed the binoculars to Nathaniel. "Do you think there's something weird about him?"

Nathaniel gracefully let the stupid question slide.

The commoner looked at her sock-puppet-ed hands. "Don't you think there's something strange about all the—"

"Phase One is complete," announced the magician. "Now we must prepare for Phase Two."

"Which is?" asked Kitty.

"To secure entry and exit out of the establishment, in the event of any destructive situation," he said, standing up purposefully and heading to the side-ladder.

"We never discussed that!" said Kitty to his marching-away back.

"Well, we should have!"snapped back Nathaniel.

-xxx-

There were two sharp raps on the door.

"Who is—?" Droopy tried to say, before the door blew up and a great malevolent presence was felt.

"Cower in fear, mortals!" bellowed the indistinct hulking form of Nouda. "For I am the Cowardly Lion!"

Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Scene Example CCXXV-v Paragraph 15a!

ROI: Dudes, I ain't speaking to the conclusion-consolidating character AND KILLER OF NATHAN—

Nathaniel: What are you talking about?

ROI: How good you would look with the spangly hair-spray stuff I'm going to give to Leonard.

Nathaniel: Leaving!

ROI: Muttering : Poor soul.

-xxx-

Blending in masterfully in the crowd, Drusilla Droopina (for the sake of my self-respect, let's say it's his humourous codename) carefully watched for any suspicious characters.

"Hey there, sweetheart," winked a tall slender . . . man?

"Want in on some action?" winked a baby-faced peppy . . . girl?

"We can make it worth you while," winked a . . . purple-haired squinty-eyed priest?

Droopy stopped, looking around. "Do you . . . have licenses?"

The character pause, and glance at each other.

"I do!" piped up the purple-sneaky-priest. "Cameo Character Gold Visa for all genres!"

"I fear mine may have expired, but not so long ago that I need to be arrested," admitted the rather-eccentric-snake-man. "But could I tell you my story?"

The peppy girl looked around at the accusing looks surrounding her.

"Alright! So my stupid allegorical manga universe doesn't let me cross genres! I don't care! I'm going back to my Utena!" she cried and ran off.

"Right. That fills the author's cameo quotient from now on," said Droopy, filling out a slip that he then handed to the 'priest'. "Just remind her that her 4U7H0R'5 rebate for the tax is running low.

"Will do," said the priest, winking.

What a coincidence I'm learning about tax now.

-xxx-

There was a crescendo of running feet.

"Who is— Droopy tried to say, before the—

"MORE BOILING OIL PLEASE!" screamed Rincewind, failed wizard, in the language of a remote tribe that earned an unfortunate reputation due to the similarity to this phrase to a frightened scream.

He knocked over Bartimaeus and promptly leapt out the window and continued screaming down the street.

"Who's a purple hippo?" demands Bartimaeus, spitting out woodchips (this translation coming from the Aurient, which means 'place of gold')

"He would make a great Cowardly Lion," commented Kitty.

**Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Scene Example**— 

There was more running feet.

"Wait a second, it's not over yet," said Droopy.

Lots of running feet. It sounded like a hundred.

"Stay back," said Droopy heroically, holding Nathaniel and Kitty behind him. "I'll—"

The door burst open more violently than before, shattering it into splinters that would trouble the average sized Marid. Emerging from the dust was what looked like a large travelling chest in everyway except for the feet. It had many pairs of them, all bare and calloused.

It appeared to sniff the air (with what?), listen intently around (with what?), and finally looked around the circle at the scared characters (_with what!_).

It then calculated (with what?), aimed (with what?), and finally decided (with I don't want to know what). Then it ran over Droopy and the Canon characters bar Bartimaeus, and straight through the wall after the screaming wizard Rincewind.

**Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Scene Example MIX-xxiv special limited edition offer of xii-V-MMVI!**

ROI: Heh-heh. I have to do a Discworld _Wizard of Oz_ sometime. The only problem is finding characters not just one-shot.

Bartimaeus: Hey! I hardly got hurt in that one!

ROI: Just take it as gratitude for being such good sport for the past . . . eight chapters.

: A rather inoffensive Auriental tourist comes in, accidentally stepping on Bartimaeus's head as he reads from a book :

Twoflower, the Discworld's first tourist: Has anyone seen my luggage, travelling case, burden, to carry a burden . . .

-xxx-

Half-a-dozen would-be kidnappers stare as Droopy downs his fifth mug of spiked beer and wipes his mouth delicately.

"Mmm, that one had a nice tang to it," he giggled, and started reapplying his strawberry lipgloss with a compact. "Would you boys like another?"

The gaping kidnappers slowly shake their heads.

"Are you sure you're a—?"

ROI storms on set, points to them, and shouts: "ATTACK!"

A furious cloud of crows swoop them up, leaving nothing but a few feathers and a couple of alcoholic drips.

"Alright!" says ROI. "No adult themes in this PG-13 fic, understand? It's all your responsibilities to keep this as clean and wholesome as possible, alright?"

Anna sips from her own mug of beer. "Aren't you, like, the writer? So shouldn't it be _your_ re—"

The crows swoop again and take the mug.

"No cheek!" shouts the author. "NO-ONE questions my authority and control over this structured piece of literature!"

Droopy kneels down and places his ear to the floor.

"Sweet Adeline . . ."

"_Sweet_ . . . GOD! THE SEWERS!"

"51L3N53!" shouts ROI. She starts to storm off, then pauses.

"Uh, will I have to pay for—?"

"No worries," says Balderdash III demurely, sipping his non-alcoholic apple wine. "I take that as an emergency situation, and so it's free."

ROI sighs in relief. "OK."

A dozen crows suddenly drop to the ground, giggling, arguing, sleeping and feeling sick.

". . . But I'm afraid I might have to tax you for that," said Leonard.

The author made a miserable sound and walks off.

Charles looks up at Droopy.

"The person you are looking for is at the back," he told him, then paused and scrutinized him.

"Yes, you would look good with curls," he adds.

"Thanks!" says Droopy cheerfully, and walks away.

-xxx-

The conversation halted as there came two sharp, neat raps from the door.

"Who goes there?" boomed Sgt. Droopy.

Nathaniel drew in front of Kitty. "If anything happens," he whispered to her, "Run for the window. We'll try to slow them down."

"We?" questioned Bartimaeus, who was already halfway to the window.

Droopy strode forward confidently, grasped the handle, and swung the door open to reveal—

Master! What are you doing here?

"Oh, I was just checking on how you were," said the cunning-looking red-haired entity. "And possibly cause some chaos if I can. You really make the best places and characters to destroy."

Er, master, I take pride in these guys. You can go after the magicians, with some exceptions, but I'd prefer if you left the canon and my OCs alone—

"Of course," nodded the man. "But, really, how are you?"

Um, pretty late as it happens. Can I move on, sir?

"Of course," he smiled.

Right, now, what should I refer to this as?

**Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Omake Ending Scene I!**

"You're using Japanese?"

Yeah, my lord, it means roughly: 'bonus'. I know it may annoy some people—

"Excellent!" clapped the Trickster. "Now I must be off. Your namesake's brother needs feeding. Farewell! If you could accommodate me?"

Huh? Oh, right.

His lord and Trickster then vanished in an impressive display of whirling multicoloured flames.

"A bit over the top, but still a good job."

Yes, m'lord. Farewell.

The ones who love jokes are the ones to be most scared of . . .

"What's that?"

Nothing, lord and master over all you see, bar places of judgement or any other gods' territories . . .

-xxx-

After many more humorous and lengthy meetings with various characters and situations of great appeal/allusion/allegory, Droopy finally made it to the back of the bar.

He surreptitiously sidled (a difficult task for such a sizable so-and-so) aside a stereotypical staff-bodyguard type and slipped out his security ID to see.

Phew, that sentence took some work.

Seeing that the guy was having some trouble reading (more because of the dark), Droopy read it out in an impressive (but quiet) voice.

"Drusilla Droopina, FCPD!"

The security guard squinted at the card.

"Looks more like a coupon for Pizza Hut," he pointed out, not unlike Mr Pointy.

—

"I don't actually work too far from there," mentioned Mr Pointy, scrubbing the work bench in the 'Fluoride City Waxworks Museum.'

"Come on, baby, work that cast!" called his superior with more enthusiasm than was necessary to watch a pose of Brittany Spears set.

—

"$4.95 for regular large pizza between 12-2pm, for a limited time only!" Droopy announces.

"Does that include chicken and stuffed crusts?" asks the security guard.

"No way, n00b!" Droopy serves the man a chop to the windpipes, on the house, and marches through (and over) the crowd to the man in the middle.

Action movie directors, I'm free on Mondays!

He arrives a metre before a lounging young man, stationed at one of the tables most far from the entrance, perpendicular to the nearest entrance, nursing a drink that was possibly a bit too old for him.

He raises his dark eyes, runs a hand over his late-cut hair and says, "What?"

Droopy bends over the table, a lock of hair that hadn't taken well to curling hanging from his temple.

"I want you to find me a man," he states.

"Well, obviously," Nick replies.

—

ROI bites through her notebook. "What did I say?"

—

"Have you ever heard of a guy called 'The Cowardly Lion'?" Droopy whispers.

Nick's stoic face doesn't move. "And who are you do ask?"

Droopy glances from side to side, and pulls out an ID that wasn't issued by the police. It had suspicious black, red and green splashes on it.

Nick's eyes widen slightly as he reads the identification. "Ah. Very well then. You may ask."

He gestures at the bodyguards to move away. A great percentage wanted to use the bathroom, but the ratio of toilet stalls to bodyguards was unsatisfactory, and out of scale I might add. Sorry, just keeping my mind fresh.

"I wish for any information on the entity known as 'The Cowardly Lion' you might have. It is vital to investigation," Droopy draws back, reapplying lipgloss.

A serious look comes into Nick's eyes. "He didn't make you happy?"

"No, it's not that at all. He's being hunted," Droopy explains.

Nick, as sharp as he was, was just that. Sharp as a knife. Sharp as a bayonet. Sharp as a well-applied ballpoint pen in some situations.

"You want us to catch him for you?"

"No," said Droopy again, patiently. "I want to find him, so he _won't_ get caught."

"So he won't leak?"

"No," said Droopy again, patiently (but I didn't type and patiently!). "Now as a responsible citizen, trying to stay sane in an insane world, I want to rescue him. I'm a cop."

All patrons of the Silhouetted Nightmare draw back in revulsion.

"So _that's_ why you're wearing that!" said a placeless person.

"That, among other things," says Droopy. "But that is pointless. Please tell me all you know about this character, so I can close this case, and live happily ever after with the prints of my dream.

: Brief, unexplored flashback of CLEAN Disney comics :

"Ah, Donald, you never have any luck," Droopy wipes his eyes. "Anyway, give me the information now, please. If I have to ask again, I'm going to shove this broken bottle into your stomach," he demonstrated his new broken bottle.

Nick, sharp as a knife, bayonet etc. etc., could catch on sooner or later. He took a sip of his suddenly changed glass of orange juice.

"I'm sorry (no artificial colours or flavours), but I can't give you very much information on this character," says Nick delicately, while keeping a briefcase between his stomach and the bottle.

"Why not?" asks Droopy politely, twisted the pointed end in the shiny leather.

"Because he is the type I do not want to associate with," the boy states.

"Why not?" Droopy repeats politely, having made a bottle-shaped hole in the briefcase (which, coincidental, was purchased at the equivalent of Kitty's father's store in this dimension. Really makes your brain hurt.)

"Because," said Nick, here his lips twisting slightly. "He is a magician."

Bam, bam, BAUM!

-xxx-

There is a knock at the door. Droopy goes to it, but it is flung open just as he got there, nearly breaking his nose.

"Oro?" goes a poor, red headed samurai with backwards blade.

"Help him, he's the Cowardly Lion, etc. etc.," states ROI, hauling the unfortunate cameo character away by the collar. "**Where in the World is the Cowardly Lion? Part III Ending Scene Example XXXLIX-ix special limited edition offer of xvi-VI-MMVI!**"

As the rushed author disappears, you could hear her mutter.

"In, out, in ten sentences or less, no charge."

-xxx-

"So, you got out," said Nathaniel.

"Yes," said Droopy.

"You got out, through the back door?" asked Kitty.

"Yes," affirmed Droopy.

"After we climbed through the vents," Nathaniel checks.

"Yes."

"And accidentally ended up landing on a line of irately waiting security guards," Kitty continues.

"Yes."

"Well, as long as you got some information on the Cowardly Lion character," Bartimaeus sighs, pulling absent-mindedly at the metal cuffs around his wrists. They were plastic, but a dense sort of plastic that one would never want to meet in a back alley, or playground.

"No," negates Droopy.

"Pardon?" Nathaniel asks, stopping from checking his hair for toilet paper.

"No, I couldn't find out much information about the Cowardly Lion," Droopy elaborated.

There is a pause, the kind that happens in situations like this.

"WHAT?" shout Commoner, Magician and Furious Entity, very loudly, in an enclosed area, in a place headquarters. Mr Pointy watches his card castle fall down. Other officers shift in their sleep.

"Altogether, not a bad night!" said Droopy cheerfully. "I got to dress up, see old friends, and yous got to know each other better, and fight a dozen desperate bodyguards out of a stall."

"Well, I can't see how this could possibly progress," Bartimaeus points out.

There is a frenzy of running feet. Someone comes panting up the hallway, to the door—

SLAM!

—Subsequently into the door.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Droopy. "Who might that be?"

After much gasping and heaving, the person wrenches open the door, and stands framed in the hall light as no greater than . . . drum roll, please . . . Arthur Underwood!

"I need . . . : wheeze : your help : cough : for I am the . . . : cough, gasp, wheeze : "

He faints in the doorway.

All other occupants stare at him.

"This isn't Example MMVDILIX, is it?" Nathaniel asks, hopefully.

Please . . . : wheeze : no . . .

* * *

Wow! I finally got. I finally got it, after all these . . . weeks. 

Anyway, there is little to say, except apologise, and I will gladly post a solid paragraph of apologises to everyone who asks (Note: Apologises posts only available in repetitive 'SORRY SORRY SORRY' type. Sorry).

Disclaimers: not done by the hyperventilating older magician, if you don't mind. Uh, spare person? Somebody?

: A brief consultancy with many characters :

"Thank you," says Bartimaeus, working out the kinks in his body from being imprisoned in insufficient space. "Now, I shall read out the disclaimers, with great appreciation that the author has granted me such a delightful request."

He drops his voice to a whisper. "Everyone who's with me, get her after the post. Ready?"

"Dude, I can hear you. I write this stuff. Get on with it."

"Ignoring Monty Python reference. The author, in her many, many other bounties, does not own the following: 'The Bartimaeus Trilogy'; 'The Wizard of Oz'; Dr Seuss' works; barber shop quartets; Terry Pratchett; Ruroni Kenshin; the crazy BADGERBADGERBADGER animation; any historic oaths; Ayame Sohma, from Fruits Basket; Wakaba, from Revolutionary Girl Utena (awesome manga); Xelloss, from Slayers; Rincewind, the Luggage, and Twoflower, from Pratchett's Discworld; Pizza Hut; the ballpoint pen and Kenshin Himura, from Ruroni Kenshin. Oh yeah. That speaking feeling's feeling great."

Bartimaeus took a deep breath, what he could do with it is anyone's guess, and surreptitiously snuck away so _somebody_ could not see him.

Ah, let him go. I'm too happy.

Footnotes! Down here! Woo!

(1) BM stands for the British Museum, PB is the Parliament building, and RH is the Rhesus Factor— whoops! The Richmond House. I should keep track of my notes.

(2) Nightmare Silhouette is a band that once included one of my classmates. He has, sadly, moved away. The name, and their music, is pretty good, but I don't own it. He was quite a character. Frazer will live on in memory!

(3) This is reference from the horribly treated Yu-Gi-Oh dub. Tristan and Teá were Honda and Anzu, changed because I don't think the American market wants to recognize the blatant Japanese influence in the animation. Pretty silly, since that is the country they get anime from.

The list of "All I Ever Needed to Know in Life I Learned From the Bartimaeus Trilogy" so far

1. 1. If you are at first a brief mention, then a helpful plot point, you will warp into becoming the main plotter in the conclusion of the book then get yourself killed (AKA Makepeace)

2. If your name is a phrase relating to goodwill, you must be bad.

3. If you are a stubborn, unreasonable, shouting prat who will not accept the wisdom of an older character or let go of a grudge, you will become a popular character. And maybe die, negating all your past mistakes.

4. If you are a sarcastic, jaded, ancient violent entity with a smart mouth and dumb mistakes, and narrate in first person, you will have a series named after you and become a popular character. And kind things will happen to you when you are certain everything is cruel and evil.

5. If you have been repressed and held in distain by a class of people, and try to cause a revolution against them, all your friends will die, your parents will become estranged, you will get beaten up, betrayed, do something nice for the person who betrayed you, and still never get up. Then possibly fall in love for one of those who repressed you, who will then sacrifice himself, making it impossible for you to hold a grudge. (All me)

6. If you have to build a wall, Get a troop of weaker entities entities to do it for you. (By Enigma. The Exception To Every Rule, thank you.)

7. Governments are unconditionally corrupt. I knew it.

8. Self-preservation at all costs.

9. Trying to kiss a dolphin is inadvisable.

10. Three little cubes make one BIG explosion.

11. In the event of breaking through magical defenses, always check for a second nexus.

12. Can't sleep. Monkey'll get me. shudder

13. Stay the hell away from big ominous black clouds that suck warmth and light from the air, etc.

14. Kissing up will get you incredibly far.

15. Don't obsess over little things and lose track of the big picture.

16. Kitty and Nathaniel are tehTRUElurve 4ever omg!11!1 (All from The Thirteenth Councilor)

17. Um, this is a pathetic attempt. Sorry. (I won't count this one, if you don't mind.)

By the way, if anyone's interested, I did give to charity. Three dollars for orphans in Uganda. Blessings upon the little dears.


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